Congratulations, it's a Boy
by capiocapi
Summary: "Sir, I have the results." "Okay, Jarvis. Hit me." "It's a match. 99.9% chance that he is your biological son, which is the percentage needed to be recognized by law as a biological parent." Tony's stomach did a funny swooping dance. "Great. Congratulations to me then, eh? It's a boy." (An AU in which Tony finds out Peter is his son.)
1. Chapter 1

**Congratulations, it's a Boy -** **Chapter 1**

Notes:

This story is, essentially, Homecoming from Tony's POV in a universe where Peter is Tony's biological child. This was inspired by how adorably parental Tony was throughout Homecoming. Plus, it's one way to explain how Tony was able to make a Spidey suit in no time flat. (Spoiler alert - he'd already been working on it before Civil War!)

In order to cover Tony's POV, we're starting back at Iron Man 2 and skipping up through time to get through parts of Civil War, and then onto Homecoming.

Disclaimer: The MCU timeline is a bit of a mess. I'm not attempting to fix it; I'm just playing in the sandbox and pretending the inconsistencies aren't there. (Like Marvel does!)

* * *

 _Meanwhile, during Iron Man 2..._

Tony was planning the birthday party to end all birthday parties. Literally, for him, since chances were good that he wouldn't live to see another. Well, maybe "planning" was too strong a word. His current plans consisted of getting drunk and having a ton of people over.

"Sir, you have received an email that I think you should read." Jarvis' voice came, as usual, interrupting his little pity party.

"Really? Does it contain the cure for palladium poisoning?"

"No, sir, but I think-"

"Is it full of amazing party ideas?"

"No, it's -"

"Then I don't think it's relevant, Jarvis. Come on, we're planning a party here! Let's stay focused."

"It's from Sandra from MIT."

"Sorry, that's not ringing any bells. Is it another donation they want? At this point, sure, let's leave them a nice chunk of change in my will. I've got a will, right? Jarvis, start a will and put MIT on the list."

"Sir, Sandra isn't a representative of MIT; you had a brief relationship with her when you visited MIT to speak several years ago."

That brought him up short. A "relationship" was probably stretching it by a mile, and several years? People were usually much quicker to resort to extortion.

"Okay, okay, fine; I'll bite. What does she want?"

"She regrets to inform you that she's dying, and she wants you to know that you have a son that she put up for adoption at birth so she could continue her education. She is sorry that she has not - "

Tony cut Jarvis off before he could hear any more about her regret. "Put it up on the screen, let's see it."

The dates matched up with a vague memory he had of a good time with an MIT grad. She claimed she knew the kid was his because she hadn't been with anyone else - not that he had any way to verify that. The baffling thing was that she wasn't asking for money or… anything at all. She just wanted to get her biggest secret off her chest before she died.

If it was true, Tony supposed the kid had gotten lucky that he'd been put up for adoption; both of his biological parents were dying at the same time.

"Great. Well, that's depressing, thanks for that, Jarvis. Look, I don't know if this is even true. Do me a favor, see if you can track the kid down. Find out who he is and add him to my will. He can have a nice chunk of change when I die too."

And with that out of the way, it was back to party planning.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A few weeks later found Tony flying low over the ocean running some real-time tests on the newest iteration of his armor - all while staying comfortably under the radar and out of the military's hair - when Jarvis broke in on his HUD.

"Sir, I have the identity of your son if you'd like to see it now."

He came to a stop, hovering over the water. "Sure, throw it up here."

The kid - Tony still couldn't be sure that he was actually his son - seemed to be in fairly capable hands. He'd been adopted at birth by a Richard and Mary Parker in Queens, New York, and from the school picture Jarvis had managed to pull up, looked like a typical kid of... whatever age he was now.

"Vital stats?"

"Peter Parker, born March 2, is 9 years-old and currently in fourth grade at Highland Elementary School in Queens. The Parkers have chosen to keep him in a public school, although there are indications that he excels in math and science."

"Math and science, huh? Do they even _do_ science in 4th grade?"

"Apparently he enjoys running his own experiments at home, according to school records."

"Hmm." Tony's mind raced. The kid wasn't his spitting image or anything, but from the sound of it he was fairly bright, then again, he didn't have much of a concept of how smart kids were supposed to be that age.

Jarvis' voice broke into his thoughts. "Sir, his parents completed a child safety kit with a DNA sample. If you'd like to verify paternity, I could match his record to yours."

Tony sighed. Better to know for sure before going any further, he supposed. Though he really wasn't sure what he was hoping for. No matter what the results said, he was no father. He was only just starting to get his life straightened out, and the thing with Pepper was still brand new… and he'd been dying just a few weeks ago. He was pretty sure if he were to look up "unstable lifestyle" in a dictionary, he'd see his own picture staring back at him.

"Sure, go for it, Jarvis. How long will it take to get results?"

"I'll have to get through the security on the database where Peter's DNA results are stored, and compare it to the to data I have for you. I'll also see if Sandra's DNA was collected by the hospital where she was first diagnosed in order to get the most accurate results. Approximately ten minutes, sir."

And whoa, that was fast. In ten minutes he'd know whether or not he was a father. Well, again, he wasn't a father. He doubted he could ever really be a father. But at least he'd know if Peter had come from him biologically. Though he wasn't even sure what he'd do with that information, if he were honest.

Tony realized he'd been hovering in the same spot for a while now, so he turned in the direction of home, and started back. If he took his time, he'd know one way or another before he even got back to his garage.

Just under ten minutes later, Jarvis chimed in, interrupting thoughts of what life would've been like if Sandra had come to him years ago instead of putting the kid up for adoption and then waiting until she was dying of cancer to tell him about it.

"Sir, I have the results."

"Okay, Jarvis. Hit me."

"It's a match. 99.9% chance that he is your biological son, which is the percentage needed to be recognized by law as a biological parent."

Tony's stomach did a funny swooping dance. "Great. Congratulations to me then, eh? It's a boy."

"Would you like me to make contact with the Parkers and tell them you're interested in meeting Peter?"

"What? No. No, no, no. None of that now. This kid has a good thing going; no need for me to bust in and ruin it. No, Jarvis, let's keep this to ourselves. I want those results encrypted and stored on my secure server. For now just… tag the Parkers with a digital alert. Let me know if anything important ever pops up. Otherwise, we're keeping away from Queens."

"Of course, sir."

"Oh, and make sure that elementary school - Highland, was it? Make sure they have updated science books and equipment. Anonymous donation."

It was only a few weeks later when Jarvis informed him that Peter's adopted parents had died, leaving him in the care of an aunt and uncle. Tony almost made contact at that point.

But in the end, he talked himself out of it. May and Ben Parker had been close to Peter's parents, and they were people Peter was comfortable with.

He collected the data and ran multiple scenarios through his head. There weren't any that ended well if he broke into Peter's life with all his chaos and nonsense. No, Peter was definitely better off without him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 2**

Summary:

Still skipping through time, we start at just after Age of Ultron and go up to a few months before Civil War.

* * *

He'd accidentally created a murder bot - not his finest moment. And yet another in the growing list of good reasons why Tony had no business getting involved in Peter's life.

"Friday, I'm gonna need you to comb through my servers and make sure Ultron didn't leave us any surprises. Start with the secure server. I want to know if he accessed anything there."

"Will do, Boss."

Ultron hadn't been active very long, and he'd been fairly busy with the whole world domination thing, so Tony was almost positive he hadn't taken the time to dig through Tony's stuff and find the things he'd buried there.

Almost positive, but he wanted to be completely positive.

He had no doubt that Ultron had perused his stuff; probably a lot of surface-level scanning of his files. And he'd definitely gotten his digital hands all over Tony's work files. The question was whether or not he'd spared the computing power to break into Tony's more secure server.

Not that it would've been too difficult. Honestly, Tony's encryption was fairly standard. He could've made it more secure, but that would've been like putting a big "do not enter!" sign on his most sensitive documents. It was better to hide the stuff in plain sight, as it were. Encrypted, but not heavily. The most sensitive files were named with a coding system that only made sense in Tony's head. Even if someone were to break the encryption, they'd find, among other things, what looked like his personal music playlist.

"Finished scanning your secure server, Boss. Ultron only accessed files related to the Iron Man armor. Scanning other servers now."

"Excellent! Thank you, Friday."

He'd purposely left the secure files about his armor off his coded "playlist". He figured if anyone ever did go to the trouble of breaking in, they'd go straight for those files and assume the rest of was nonsense; the product of an eccentric genius with too much time on his hands. The files he'd hidden held the keys to taking him, and the other Avengers out, as well as personal data about Peter.

Not that he worried about Peter; it wasn't his job. Peter had two very capable adults looking after him. But considering Tony's hobbies, the kid would be safer if no one ever knew about their biological connection.

"I'm compiling a list of files Ultron accessed on the other servers. So far he doesn't seem to have left anything behind."

"Great. Keep compiling the list, we'll keep it for reference."

There wasn't anything on the other servers that would be a catastrophic loss for him. At most, if Ultron had taken the time to put any of it online it might mean some profit loss for Stark Industries.

It looked like Peter's identity was safe.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Several months after Sokovia, Tony was settling into a pattern that he should've known wouldn't last. He and Pepper's 'on-again, off-again' relationship was currently off, but he was making steady, if tentative progress with his to-do's that didn't directly involve flying around in the suit. He'd just finished signing off on a few scholarship programs Stark Industries would be funding, and he was currently consulting with representatives from several other countries about an initiative they were writing that would officially give the Avengers international jurisdiction.

Which would be nice, because then Steve's little group of up-and-coming heroes wouldn't find themselves in hot water next time they had to squash a Hydra cell overseas.

Although it seemed that Hydra was mostly squashed, as near as they could tell. There were still a few people pretty high on the wanted list they had yet to find, but he trusted that Steve would take care of it; Tony had more than enough to keep himself busy.

"Boss, there's a news alert for Ben Parker that you should see."

Tony brought the news item up on the nearest screen. Ben Parker had been killed in a mugging several hours earlier. Tony's heart raced, despite the fact that he'd never met the man.

"Have they released the identity of the suspect yet?"

"Not yet, but apparently the police have someone in custody who was caught fleeing the scene."

"Let's not wait. Go into their system and find out who it is."

Tony needed to know if it was a random attack, or something connected to the people the Avengers had been hunting. Neither was good, but if someone had somehow learned of their connection and started going after Peter's family, he needed to know immediately.

Suddenly a mug shot appeared on the screen, complete with vital details.

"Run a crosscheck on this guy. Dig deep, and look for any connections to Hydra, Sokovia, or anything remotely related to Avengers business."

"Got it, Boss."

Tony couldn't imagine how this was going to affect Peter. The kid was only 14 and he'd already lost the second father figure he'd known. Thankfully, May was still with him, and could no doubt do a better job consoling a grieving teenager than he could, even while grieving herself.

He could almost hear his dad's voice in his head telling him to "Get over it, son." That had been his own father's go-to response whenever anything upsetting happened.

He knew May would do better than that.

"No connections found, Boss. It appears to have been a random mugging."

Tony sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "Thanks, Friday."

Terrible things happened even when you weren't taunting criminals and running around saving the world in costume.

It just wasn't fair. Why couldn't a random mugging happen to someone else? Not that he'd wish it on anyone directly, but why did it have to be Peter's uncle? Why did Peter have to lose two fathers before he was even old enough to drive?

"Ben Parker was ex-military, wasn't he? Was it Army? Navy?"

"Records show he served in the Navy before he was married."

"Send Mrs. Parker a letter. Tell her one of Ben's old Navy buddies is paying for his funeral anonymously. Just send her a check."

"Will do."

He knew it wasn't enough; there were some problems you just couldn't solve with money, but he didn't know what else to do.

Of course, Peter wasn't his responsibility, never had been, but the kid was his blood. All he wanted to do was make sure that he made it to adulthood in one piece.

Once, he'd allowed himself to wonder what it would've been like to have known Peter from birth. To have been there when he first spoke and first walked. To have been the one to teach him… whatever it was that babies learned from their fathers.

But that was once. The one time that he'd allowed himself to daydream. After that he put the past right back where it belonged - in the past - and focused on the here and now.

The way he saw it, agonizing over what could've been, what should've been… that was like a computer virus. Eating up time and resources, keeping you from doing what you needed to be doing. And these thoughts… these musing… just like a virus had to be examined, understood, and then completely purged in order to move forward.

So he allowed those thoughts once. And after that he rebooted and started fresh.

Peter was his, but not his. His role, if he had any, was to stay back and let Peter have a good, normal life away from his biological father's bullshit.

So Tony had kept tabs. Nothing invasive. He'd kept the news alert going, on Peter, Ben and May, Peter's school, and Queens, in general. If anything important happened, he'd know it.

But, as he was now realizing, that didn't mean he'd know how to help. Not with things like this.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Shortly after Ben died news started coming in from Queens about a vigilante. Now danger? That was his territory. If there was an asshole in costume running around Queens being dangerous, Tony was going to find out who he was, and what his game was. Because Tony needed Queens to be safe, and vigilantes tended to attract trouble.

He had Friday collect every shred of footage, every news item, every mention on social media… anything he could get his hands on. All of it came to him to be analyzed. By the time the vigilante known as "Spider-Man" had been operating three months, Tony knew his height, build, and was pretty sure he had his base of operation pinned to within a two block radius.

The same two block radius Peter and May lived in.

Which was way too close to Peter for Tony's liking.

"Friday, ramp up surveillance on those two blocks where this Spider guy's likely base of operations is. I want to catch that son of a bitch. Monitor every traffic, bank, and store camera in that area, especially during the evenings when the vigilante tends to operate."

"On it, Boss."

The Spider-Man seemed like a decent enough guy, taking on petty criminals, rescuing animals, and helping old ladies… but shows of strength attracted attention of the dangerous kind, and Tony didn't need that around Peter. The plan was to catch him, and convince him to take his act to another neighborhood. Preferably one a little further removed from Queens.

"Station a surveillance drone across the street from Peter's apartment, too. I want to know if the vigilante ever comes close to his place."

Even though a very small, easily squashed part of himself hated the invasiveness of it, he couldn't risk Peter somehow getting tangled up in the violence.

Luckily, when Spider-Man had appeared, crawling right through Peter's window one night, Tony had been in a conference call.

Luckily, most of the people Tony dealt with were used to him abruptly ending conference calls to go do other things.

He'd been on his way to his shop to grab his remote armor controls when Friday had informed him that in all likelihood, Spider-Man and Peter were the same person. And boy, had that stopped him in his tracks.

Friday presented the evidence: same height and build, Peter lived within the same two-block radius that was most likely Spider-Man's home base, Peter was in school between 8am and 3pm - times that Spider-Man never seemed to appear. And of course, the little fact that Spider-Man had just crawled through Peter's bedroom window.

But since when did Peter have powers? Besides the obvious Stark powers of good looks and high intelligence, of course.

After about five minutes of his brain short circuiting trying to take it all in, Tony started moving again.

"All right, Friday, let's figure this out. Go back and get the date on the earliest recorded appearance of Spider-Man, and cross reference that time period with info we've collected on Peter. I want to know if anything significant happened to him that could've caused this."

Tony entered his lab and plopped down in front of his work area with the largest displays. "Pull up the best footage of Spider-Man in action. I want to see it again."

And as he watched Peter stopping cars and crawling up walls he began to run the calculations in his head, and his mind started spinning.

"Sorry, Boss, I haven't found any reference in any social media, news outlet, or public record that would correlate with Peter gaining super strength and agility."

"And wall-crawling. The kid's somehow able to defy gravity."

"That too."

Tony sighed. "Play that footage again, Friday."

Tony watched Peter, dressed in blue sweat pants and a red hoodie, of all things, jump in front of a car that had to be going at least 30 miles an hour and stop it from hitting a bus.

"Can you calculate the speed of the vehicle from the footage?"

"Sure, Boss. Based on the surrounding objects, it appears to be going 40 miles an hour."

"At that speed… what's that thing weigh? Ballpark it at about 3,000 pounds… a dead stop against an immovable object…" Tony ran the calculations in his head. "That's an impact force of just over 27 tons…"

Tony put a hand to his chest, realizing that he was a little breathless. His brain was short-circuiting, caught in an endless loop of incomprehension. It wasn't possible. It wasn't possible.

And yet there it was. His son was Spider-Man.

Tony spent the weekend alternating between trying to prove why everything he'd just learned about Peter couldn't possibly be true, and knocking his head against his desk wishing it wasn't.

Then Monday came, and it was time to do something about it.

* * *

Notes:

Tony's whole bit about his "what if" thoughts being completely behind him - he's being a little self-deceptive here. He really wishes it were that simple. He tells himself it's that simple. But it isn't. Tony's only human, as much as he might sometimes wish he could get rid of pesky thoughts like a computer virus.


	3. Chapter 3

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 3**

Summary:

We're into Civil War now, and preparing to fight.

* * *

Tony leaned back, stretching out his legs. Chartering a private plane back to New York was going to take more time than he wanted, but he supposed that's what he got for coming to Berlin unprepared. Lesson learned; he'd never leave home without his armor again.

He'd told Natasha that he knew someone… but despite how quickly he'd said it, it hadn't been a whim. He'd been preparing for this for a while, and now was as good a time as any, he supposed.

"Friday, get the Spider suit out of storage and activate it's AI. I'll have Happy come by to box it up in a bit."

"I'll get it ready, Boss."

He'd been working on a suit for Peter for months now; nearly since the day he'd found out his son was a vigilante super spider. He still kind of hoped the kid would get bored of the hero business and take up a safer hobby like… knitting, or something. But, if Peter was anything at all like Tony, the kid was probably going to find a way to do what he wanted to do regardless of what any stuffy adults in his life might think.

And with that in mind, he'd been making the suit and loading it with features, all without any idea of how he'd eventually give the damn thing to the kid. He definitely couldn't show up at his door one day and say "You don't know me, but your extracurricular activities are giving me gray hairs. Wear this so I can monitor you and supply you with the backup you'll no doubt need at some point."

Plus, it looked damn cool. Better than sweat pants, anyway. Tony had gone with a light-weight, flexible material that could move the way the kid moved. Luckily, he knew from watching footage of Spider-Man that the kid could easily withstand 27 tons of force - so protection probably wasn't going to be an issue, especially if he kept to rescuing puppies and helping senior citizens.

So the plan was to pop over to Queens, bluff his way into Peter's apartment, and somehow get him to come along to Germany and try out the new suit. How he went about it would depend upon whether or not May was aware of Peter's other identity.

Thankfully, Tony was good at thinking on his feet.

Even though New York traffic would eat up more time, Tony opted to take a car rather than his armor; he figured he was less likely to worry Aunt May if he showed up in a suit that wasn't made for fighting.

"Friday, time to bite the bullet - dial Happy."

"Calling Happy."

Happy answered on the first ring. "Everything okay? Did Steve finally sign the Accords?"

"Well hello, how're you? I'm fine, thanks."

"Come on, don't bullshit me. What's going on?"

"What's going on, is I need you to go to the tower and pack up some gear for me. You're going to Berlin."

"Berlin? What's in Berlin?"

"Steve is. And yes, he's going to sign. A few of us are going to help him see reason." Technically, they weren't sure exactly where Steve had gone with his murderous buddy, but they couldn't have gotten far, not with the amount of the surveillance they had in the city. Tony was confident that they'd have their location before the 36 hours were up; he just had to have everything else in position for when the time came.

"Is that like… 'help him see reason' in the sense that you're going to have a nice chat, or 'help him' as in you're going to fire missiles at his face until he gives in?"

"Happy, how dare you; that's America's sweetheart you're talking about!" He could hear Happy starting to protest again, so he added more seriously, "We're still a team. He'll come around, Happy, trust me."

And he really did believe it. He couldn't imagine Steve facing half his team and opting to fight them instead of joining with them to do things the right way. After all, teams were sort of his thing. He wouldn't be bringing Peter along if he thought for a second that there might actually be serious fighting. He suspected that at most, this would be like a sort of training exercise.

"Okay, okay. So gear. What are we talking here?"

"Friday will have it ready down in my shop. It'll be a red and blue suit that looks like spandex, and some accessories. Friday can walk you through packing it once you're there."

Happy sputtered. "You're going to wear spandex? Is this a joke?"

"The suit isn't really spandex, and isn't for me, Happy, it's for a guest that'll be joining us. Which reminds me, I'm going to fly straight over in one of my suits so I'll need you to take the new guy in the plane and set him up in a hotel until we're ready for him."

Happy huffed over the line. "Fine, I'll get everything ready."

"Perfect. I'll have Friday send you more info once I confirm when he'll be ready. We need to move quickly - I've only got, uh- about 27 hours now to put this to bed."

Happy agreed and disconnected the call just as Tony was pulling up to Peter's apartment building. He sat in the car a second, mentally preparing himself to meet his son for the first time.

If there was another thing Tony was good at, besides thinking on his feet, it was playing the part of an eccentric billionaire. That was the role he was going to play; not Peter's long-lost deadbeat dad.

Once he was sure he was in the proper mindset, he locked the car and headed up to convince the guardian of a 15 year-old that he was just a harmless billionaire hoping to take her charge downtown for a few days for a grant orientation meeting.

May answered his knock, and Tony turned on the charm. In less than four minutes, he was inside, sitting on the Parker's couch and accepting an offer of tea and walnut date loaf.

"This is fantastic, thank you."

"My pleasure. It's not every day we get a celebrity coming to the door. So what exactly did Peter apply for?"

"Stark Industries has several scholarship and educational grant programs. A particularly interesting one is a program we've started to provide grants and educational opportunities to high school students who are interested in science and math. Peter submitted an impressive application, and since I was in the neighborhood, I wanted to come meet him and let him know in person that he'd been accepted into our program."

"That's - that's amazing! I didn't even know he'd applied!" May jumped up from the sofa and walked a couple of steps in one direction, and then a couple of steps in the other. She looked like she didn't know what to do with herself. She finally returned to her spot on the sofa and looked like she was about to start asking questions when the door opened.

Peter came into the apartment, head down, seeming more interested in getting to his room than in noticing a guest in the living room.

"Hey, May," he called.

"Hey. How was school today?" May answered, shooting a glance at Tony.

"Okay. There's this crazy car parked outside…" Peter finally looked up and noticed that he and his aunt had company.

"Oh, Mr. Parker!"

The kid reacted about like people normally did around him; stumbling and starstruck. It wasn't too hard to convince him to go along with the ruse about the imaginary grant.

The next thing he knew he was in Peter's room, actually having a conversation with his son for the first time ever. So he pulled out all the stops, playing it cool in a way that he'd perfected over years of experience being an outsider pretty much everywhere he went.

Later, on his way out of Queens, his mind went over a few of the things he'd learned. Peter'd mentioned his senses being dialed up to an eleven after something had happened. Which confirmed what he'd known despite not being able to find any evidence - something had happened to Peter to cause this change in him. Also…

"Friday, is the Spider suit AI up and running?"

"Yes, it's online and Happy is en route to pack it."

"Upload the sensory overload prevention update."

"Will do, Boss."

One of the last things he'd been working on had been several updates to the suit's system that would provide protection against certain types of sensory input. After all the footage he'd watched, he figured there was no way the kid was able to do the things he did at the speed he did them without some degree of enhanced senses. But since he hadn't been sure just how enhanced Peter's senses might be, or how they might affect him, he'd created several different updates that would monitor Peter's reactions to sensory input and try to learn how to best protect him from overload.

"Friday, let me know as soon as Happy finishes packing up. I don't want to break the news to him until he's done handling the suit."

"Got it."

About ten minutes later, Friday chimed in, letting him know that Happy had finished with the suit and was awaiting contact.

"Here we go. Dial Happy."

Happy answered immediately. "A local vigilante?"

"He has a particular set of skills that I find useful." Tony figured that Happy could probably hear the 'shrug' in his voice. "Here's the deal - and this is top secret, Happy, I'm serious about this."

"Tony, please. I'm a professional -"

"He's a minor," Tony interrupted. "And he doesn't have a passport, so as far as anyone knows, he's going to be spending the weekend at the tower at a grant orientation."

"That's a terrible joke, even for you."

Tony sighed. "It's not a joke. I need you to just go with it, okay? This is important. You'll take the private jet. Official Avenger business. Flight inventory is going to be classified Avengers gear - his name won't be listed - we'll be covered because this is officially sanctioned business under the Accords. I'll send you his name and address in a sec."

Happy seemed to be alternating between cursing and sputtering. "You can't possibly -"

"It's an apartment in Queens. You'll go to his door and greet his aunt, and reassure her that her nephew will be safe at the tower all weekend talking science and grants. I'll have Friday whip up some documentation for you. It'll be September Foundation stuff. Just get the kid and take him straight to the jet. Once you get to the hotel in Germany, check him in under an alias and then sit tight. I'll contact you once I know more."

"I can't believe you right now."

"Believe it, buddy." Tony paused. "I need you on this, Happy."

Happy was silent a moment, but when he finally spoke, he sounded like the long-suffering friend he'd been through many of Tony's eccentric adventures.

"I'll get it done."

"You're the best, Happy!"

"I want to be asset management, though. I deserve it."

"Mmm hmm. We'll talk about that later, when Steve's not being stupid."

Once the call ended, Tony spent the rest of the drive going over the conversation he'd had with Peter. Amazingly, this kid who'd somehow gained superpowers was more interested in secretly thwarting evil in the world than in impressing his friends. Tony was still reeling a bit at the fact that Peter had been a vigilante for about half a year now and had told exactly no one what he was doing. That was just about the most opposite thing to a Stark trait that he could imagine. Starks weren't known for keeping what they could do under wraps, that was for damn sure.

Clearly, the kid's upbringing had had a positive effect on him. And just as clear to him, he might have a role to play in Peter's future - perhaps a distant benefactor - but he could never get too close. Peter seemed to have inherited only the best Stark traits; no need to get close enough for the worst ones to rub off on him as well.

* * *

Notes:

This story is Tony's POV, so we're seeing into his mind and getting his opinions on the Accords and Steve's actions. I'm not bashing Steve (or Bucky, because I love Bucky to death!), but I can't deny Tony his opinions. Tony makes plenty of mistakes, but, just like anybody, he believes he's doing the right thing - or at least the best thing given the circumstances.


	4. Chapter 4

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 4**

Summary:

Airport fight!

* * *

Two warnings:  
1\. We're going to have to suspend our disbelief a bit when it comes to locations and timelines because Marvel has sort of played fast and loose with them and it'd be too hard to make it make logical sense. I've got the fight taking place in Berlin, even though afterwards Gen. Ross mentions Leipzig suddenly... because it just makes more sense in my mind. But other than that, I've tried to be vague where I can be, because an awful lot happens in the couple days that Tony has Peter - ESPECIALLY given that Homecoming has Tony returning Peter to his apartment - not sure how he even made it back in time. But again, I'm invoking Marvel's Magic Wand of Time and Place to make it happen. (This will apply to next chapter as well. And probably the whole story.)

2\. This is Tony's POV and he's fighting people. He's not particularly happy about it, so his opinions will reflect that. This is not character bashing, this is me trying to do justice to Tony's point-of-view. :)

* * *

It wasn't always easy for Tony to anticipate what Steve was going to do; his thought process was still a bit of a mystery sometimes - probably, Tony figured - the result of having grown up in an entirely different era.

But once a little birdie named Vision reported that Clint had come for Wanda and they'd gone off to join Steve, his plan had started to become clear. Steve would likely want Clint to pilot the quinjet to wherever they were headed. And since the quinjet was currently parked safely at the airport in Berlin, they'd probably be heading there to get it.

With that in mind, they'd doubled their surveillance of the airport; the minute Steve & Friends showed up, they'd know it.

Since Vision was able to tell him what time Clint had left with Wanda, and he knew how long the trip from New York to Berlin took, he figured their time was short. Steve would be attempting an exit soon.

Tony stood and made his way towards the door of the conference room they'd been using inside the ops center in Berlin. "Won't be long now. Let me know when they appear, and I'll meet you there."

Natasha looked up from where she'd been quietly conversing with T'Challa. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go brief the new recruit."

He dialed Happy before he'd even left the building.

"Happy, how's the squirt?"

"Hyper. Tony, you're killing me here. I took him sightseeing for a few hours like you said, but this kid never stops. He's been making like this personal video journal of every freakin' second. I told him he couldn't show anyone, but he still wants to record everything."

"Well let's put that energy to good use then. Have him suit up and bring him to the airport you flew into - the one closest to your hotel. Meet me out on the edge, though. I'm going to fly in about a mile away and ride the rest of the way with you guys. I don't want to scare off Spangles and his Merry Men."

"Got it. We'll be there in fifteen."

"I'll be waiting. I'll send you my exact coordinates once I land."

As soon as he stepped out of the armor and collapsed it into its carrying case a mile from the airport, word came from the ops center - Steve had been spotted by a traffic cam driving a VW Bug, of all things. He was currently making his way up one of the winding ramps towards the airport.

"Okay, everybody, it's game time. I'll have Friday make the call to evacuate the airport in seven minutes, that'll give them time to get all the way into the airport before we tip them off. Let's converge outside the south terminal as planned. We can track them on the ground from there."

Tony heard affirmative replies in his ear just as Happy's rental came around the corner with Peter in his new Spider-Man suit in the backseat, sans mask.

He climbed into the back, putting the case with his armor down by his feet.

"Mr. Stark! Thank you for bringing me, Germany is awesome! And the hotel room is amazing I've-"

He held up a hand to stop what was probably about to be a full recap of Peter's adventures so far. "Sorry, it's time to break in that suit now so I need you to listen up. Steve and whoever else he's bringing along are currently making their way towards the airport."

Tony leaned forward and addressed Happy. "Get to the south terminal and park there. About the time you drop us off, the airport will start calling for an evacuation. Just sit tight. I'll call you when it's over and we'll take Steve back to ops and get this settled."

Then he turned to Peter, who sat wide-eyed, Spider-Man mask in hand. Before he could start asking questions, Tony explained. "Captain America is having a bit of an identity crisis, so we're going to assist him. He's hasn't gone to the Dark Side or anything; he thinks he's doing the right thing, but he's not, and that makes him dangerous. We're going to talk it out and help him see reason.

"Now, you're going to stay out of sight until I tell you otherwise. Should Steve need further convincing, I'll call you out and I want you to get the shield from him and web him up. At that point, Steve will have to listen."

And since Tony didn't like leaving things to chance when he could help it, he added. "If, for some reason, Steve decides to test us and a little skirmish starts, I want you to keep your distance and just web people up. If Steve comes after you directly, don't try to engage him, just web up his legs and stop him in his tracks."

Tony paused for a second to let Peter absorb everything he'd said so far. "Don't try to talk him out of anything yourself; he'll just tell you that you don't understand what's going on. Let us convince him, you just immobilize him, all right?"

Peter nodded and judging by his expression, he was just about as sincere as he'd ever been in his life. "Got it, Mr. Stark."

"And keep your mask on. Not only will it protect your identity, but you'll be able to hear us on comms."

Tony's heart was pounding. Now that this was finally happening, he kind of wished he'd found another way to introduce himself to Peter. Tony went over Steve's team in his mind. He couldn't imagine any of them fighting with lethal force - not today - but he took some comfort in the fact that he knew Peter was far more durable than the rest of them. He'd be fine.

He had to be.

"Uh, Mr. Stark? What's the signal? For me to come out of hiding, I mean."

Tony shrugged. He supposed they should agree on something. He couldn't exactly call the kid by name, and he didn't want to say "hey kid" and give away any hint of his age. Hell, even calling him "Spider-Man" might give away the fact that he operated in Queens. It's something any of them could easily find out themselves, but if it came to fighting, he doubted they'd take the time to ask him for ID, and he wasn't about to hand them anything.

"Let's go with 'Underoos'," Tony answered with a smirk. "That won't lead back to you."

Instead of looking annoyed, Tony watched as the kid's face actually lit up as if he was in on some secret joke between them. "It's like when you called my first suit a onesie."

Apparently everything he said and did was awesome as far as Peter was concerned. Man, was he going to be disappointed down the road. "Right, but definitely not applicable now that you're in Stark gear."

"Oh no, of course not, Mr. Stark. This suit is amazing!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Of course things fell apart in the worst way possible. Steve was so convinced of his own mission that he refused to listen to reason. He refused to even consider stopping a second to come back to ops and get it all figured out as a team - like they were supposed to do. 'Talking to a brick wall' had never been a more apt description.

Suddenly they were fighting, and while he was still confident that no one would use lethal force, he was determined to end things as quickly as possible. The longer the fight went on, the greater the risk of damage, both to the property, and to the people involved.

And then Wanda knocked what felt like a parking lot's worth of cars on top of him, and he realized that the other side didn't seem to care about property damage.

He briefly wondered if Wanda had known, or more concerning, had even cared how much force his suit could withstand. She may not have been trying to kill him, but she sure as hell wasn't trying not to hurt him.

He was still extricating himself from the wreckage when a fuel truck exploded. He switched to private communications.

"Friday, where's Peter?"

"Peter is currently subduing Sergeant Barnes and Sam Wilson inside the west terminal."

"No shit? Hurray for our side, then." Tony didn't know whether or not Peter could withstand an explosion, and he honestly hoped he'd never have to find out.

Within minutes, both sides were regrouped outside facing each other. Tony was done playing nice. This had already gone on way too long. Just the fact that they were even fighting at all was mind boggling. Was this Steve's idea of a team? Cooperate until you disagree on something, and then kick the shit out of whoever disagrees and go do whatever you wanted to do?

He was done.

Tony went straight for Steve. If he couldn't convince him to surrender, he'd have to force the issue.

And the next thing he knew his suit was malfunctioning and he could hear a voice that definitely didn't belong in his suit, and definitely wasn't his conscience, despite what it claimed.

Then, the previously very small fighter on Steve's team was suddenly very big and tossing Rhodey through the air like a toy. Tony recognized that it was a distraction so Cap could get to the jet, but recognizing it didn't mean he could ignore it. It was like they were suddenly fighting Godzilla.

Tony ran a few weight-to-strength calculations in his head, trying to figure out how much stronger this guy was now that he was a giant. Not that he needed the math - the guy was ripping wings off planes like they were made of tissue paper.

"Hey guys," Peter's voice came over the comms as they were fighting, "you ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?"

"Jesus, Tony, how old is this guy?" Rhodey exclaimed, half in disbelief, half in accusation.

And Tony was feeling guilty enough about brining the kid into this, thank-you-very-much. He loved Rhodey, but he wasn't about to give away any of Peter's secrets.

"I don't know, I didn't carbon-date him. He's on the young side." He hoped that Peter wouldn't break in to contradict him and start telling Rhodey all about his visit to the apartment in Queens. Thankfully, Peter seemed more focused on the fight than on clarifying his age.

"You know that part where they're on the snow planet, with the walking thingies?"

"Maybe the kid's onto something." He was anxious to keep the focus on the fight, and end it quickly. Peter webbed up the giant's legs while he and Rhodey went high to knock the bastard on his ass.

Except again, nothing was going the way it was supposed to today. On his way to the ground, the giant asshole's hand swatted Peter right out of the air, slamming him into the ground.

And yeah… yeah. That was definitely panic he was feeling. His brain became a jumble of calculations that stopped making sense. Weight-to-strength, human bone density, enhanced durability… he didn't have all the variables he needed, and even if he did, his mind was racing, bouncing from one thought to the other like rubber ball.

He skidded to a stop next to the kid, who wasn't moving.

He wasn't moving.

"Kid, you all right?"

Suddenly Peter woke up, batting away the hands that were reaching for him as if he were still in the middle of a fight.

"Same side. Guess who. Hi, it's me." Tony held Peter's wrists and watched as he began to calm down.

"Hey, man. That was scary." Peter exhaled, the fight leaving him.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "You're done, all right? You did a good job. Now stay down." He still had to help Rhodes stop the quinjet, but he wanted to make sure Peter knew that his part was over. He wasn't taking any more chances with the kid.

Peter protested, insisting that he wasn't done, but Tony refused to give in. Finally, he had to invoke Aunt May's name to get the kid to agree that he was done. Of course, it was an empty threat. He couldn't really call up Peter's guardian who thought he was still in New York and inform her that not only had he taken Peter on an illegal trip overseas without her permission - or even a passport - but, he'd also gotten her nephew into a fight against super-powered individuals who'd hurt him.

Yeah, he was father of the year.

Once he knew that Peter would stay down, he left to help Rhodey. Either they'd stop the quinjet, or it'd get away, but either way he didn't want Peter involved anymore.

"Friday, keep an eye on Peter's vitals and let me know if anything becomes concerning."

"Will do, Boss."


	5. Chapter 5

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 5**

Summary:

Aftermath of all the fighting, and Peter goes home.

* * *

Tony flopped onto his back, staring at the cement ceiling. If it were up to him, he'd be done. He'd just lay right here on his back until… whenever.

But his ears were getting cold, and another suit was on the way. Arriving momentarily in fact, if Friday kept to protocol, which he knew she would. As soon as his suit's flight capabilities had become compromised, she'd have sent a replacement to his location. And since the fight had ended right next to one of the openings in the side of the mountain, he was sure she'd use the GPS in his damaged suit to bring the new suit right to him.

So that was nice. Too bad everything else was a complete shit storm.

Bucky had killed his parents - his mother, who'd been the only human being ever to love Tony as-is, no questions asked. She hadn't been perfect, but he'd always known her love was unconditional. Not like his dad who only seemed to approve of him when he was achieving, or all the others who only liked him for his money or his mind or his ability to invent weapons. The one person who'd never left him - because hell, even Pepper got tired of him, not that he blamed her - but the one person who'd never left had been his mom.

And Steve had been protecting the bastard who killed her the whole time. Yes, he'd been mind-controlled by Hydra, he got it. But that didn't make it hurt less. And it sure as hell didn't make it okay for the two of them to hide the truth, and for Steve's buddy to walk free, masquerading around as some innocent soul who didn't know anything about the Starks' murder.

He'd thought they'd died in a car accident.

How long had Steve known differently and not told him? Had they discussed it behind his back while they were running around hiding from the law?

Not that it mattered now. Steve had made his choice.

Right on time, a new suit arrived, and Tony carefully pealed himself out of the old one and climbed into the new one.

"Friday, you're the one good thing about today."

"I aim to please, Boss."

"Send another suit to this location to retrieve the shield and what's left of the damaged suit. I need to get back to New York."

"Will do."

Tony tried to remember what time it was in Berlin right now. Were they still in Germany? At the moment he couldn't even remember what time Happy and Peter were flying out.

"Friday, where's Happy? Wait, you know what, just call him."

Happy answered the phone with a snort and a muffled greeting.

"Hey, sleepyhead! What time is it over there? How's Peter?"

"Tony! Uh… I don't know what time it is. We're on the jet on the way back to New York. Peter's fine. He fell asleep right after takeoff. Where are you? What's going on?"

"I got held up a bit, but I'm on my way back now. Let's meet up at the tower and we'll drive the squirt back together."

"Okay. I heard about Colonel Rhodes. I'm sorry, Tony. I haven't told the kid yet."

"Nope, it's fine. No need to tell him. Rhodey is gonna be fine. They're sending him back to New York, and as soon as they release him, we're putting him up at the compound."

Tony swallowed a lump in his throat at the thought of what had almost happened. "I'll see you in a while."

He set the suit on autopilot, and let himself checkout for a while.

-0-0-0-0-0-

By the time he got back to the mansion, he couldn't say he was feeling any better, but at least he had a game plan.

And like so many times in his life, ready or not, he had to put up a good front.

Tony called Happy again as soon as he stepped into the tower.

"Guess who's home? Actually, don't guess. It's me. I'm gonna take a quick shower and then we can return the Spiderling to his rightful lair."

Tony heard Happy sigh over the line. "Copy that. We're having dinner now. Want us to save you some?"

"Nope, I'm good, buddy. I'll see you in a bit."

A quick glance in the mirror told Tony that he definitely wouldn't be walking Peter up to his door; he didn't want to give May the impression that he'd just gone ten rounds with a super soldier.

Even if he had.

Once the blood was all washed off, and he didn't smell like a remote Siberian bunker… nope, he still looked like shit.

The last thing Tony needed right now was Peter asking a bunch of questions about what had happened, and where Steve had gone, and whether or not he'd had his ass handed to him by a couple of century-old super soldiers.

Tony's makeup concealer wasn't perfect, but the sun was already setting, and the darker it got, the better Tony's face would look. Plus, he had tinted glasses. People were used to seeing him in dark glasses even at night. Sometimes it paid to be an eccentric billionaire.

It was show time.

Tony spent the ride into Queens making sure he was as professional and distant as he could possibly be towards the kid who shared his DNA, whose life he'd endangered, who seemed to be suffering from a bad case of hero worship.

He'd already failed to keep the Avengers together, he'd failed to keep Rhodey safe, and he'd failed to stop Steve from heading off into the sunset with his BFF who, by the way, was still susceptible to mind control. The only thing that he'd managed to do right recently was to not get Peter killed, and that was more likely due to dumb luck rather than any skill on his part.

Really, the best thing Tony could do for Peter was to stay the hell away from him.

Happy, bless him, didn't make a fuss about Peter reporting to him. At least not until the kid was out of the car, and on his way up to his apartment.

"Why, exactly, is the kid going to be calling me instead of you?" Happy asked as soon as they were driving again.

"You want to be asset management. He's an asset. Manage him."

"Tony, you know that's not the kind of asset I meant when-"

"Consider this a trial run, then." When Happy started to protest again, Tony continued. "Look, I've got Ross breathing down my neck, the team is in shambles - I need you to take this one off my plate, okay?"

Happy huffed. "Fine. But I'm not answering every single time he calls. He can leave voicemails."

"Your monkeys, your circus."

Except it really wasn't. Peter might be reporting to Happy, but the suit's AI would be reporting to Friday, and Friday would be keeping him up-to-date with Peter. It's not that he didn't trust Happy, because he did.

Actually, if Tony were honest with himself, he didn't. He didn't trust anyone with Peter's safety, least of all himself. But keeping an eye on Peter would give Happy something to do, and it'd provide a second pair of eyes on Peter. For now, that was the best he could do.

-0-0-0-0-0-

After sleeping for what felt like a week, Tony woke up in his own bed at the compound, feeling like he'd been hit by several buses and a train. He groaned, muscles cramping.

"Friday. How long have I been asleep?"

"Six hours and thirty-two minutes."

"Ugh. So not a week, then? I feel terrible."

"Not surprising, considering the multiple contusions and hairline fractures you sustained."

"I'm not surprised, just disappointed." He was so disappointed. In everything.

"What's Peter been up to?"

"Peter has not used the suit, and there have been no reported sightings of Spider-man tonight. Presumably. he's asleep."

Well that was one point in the good column. Of course, the night was young.

 _Was_ it young?

"What time is it, Friday?"

"Four forty-nine a.m."

Early morning, then. Well, since he was awake…

"Great. I'm headed down to the workshop. Pull up those exoskeleton files I was tinkering with a while back. We're going to be working on a modification for Rhodey."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Rhodey was wearing his creation within a few days. The exoskeleton legs seemed to be a success. At least, Rhodey seemed to be making good progress learning to walk with them. Of course, Rhodey was probably one of the most naturally-badass people he'd ever known. If anyone could figure out how to get moving again, it was Rhodes.

When a package came for him in the middle of one of their sessions, Tony was sure it was a mistake. He didn't normally get mail directly to the compound; it went to a secure box offsite and was picked up.

Not to mention the FedEx guy called him "Mr. Stank." But, while Rhodey went back to his physical therapy, laughing his ass off, Tony checked the package - it was definitely his name.

No return address, though.

"I'll be right back. Don't fall on your ass while I'm gone."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Stank," Rhodey answered with a grin, the bastard.

Tony went over to his office and set the package carefully on the desk. "Friday, do a quick scan of the package. Make sure it isn't anything I'm gonna regret opening."

"There are no traces of explosive or biological material."

"Here goes, then." He opened the package and retrieved a letter and a cell phone.

Of course Steve had decided to contact him. And of course he'd sent a letter instead of just emailing him like a normal person. Part of him was actually a little surprised he'd used FedEx - and the guy had come in a normal truck and not a horse-drawn carriage.

He sighed, reading the letter. In typical Steve fashion, he was sorry, but not sorry enough to change his mind. Apparently, he regretted not telling him about his parents' death, but not enough to turn his friend over to the authorities to get some help. And he wished they could agree on the Accords, but they didn't so it looked like Steve had decided he'd rather be a fugitive than try to find some common ground.

Suddenly an alert from Friday broke into his thoughts. "Priority call from Secretary Ross. There's been a breach at the Raft prison."

"Yeah, put him through."

As soon as he had Ross on the line, he put him on hold just like he'd told him he would. But rather than watching the line blink like he'd told Ross, he glanced back over at the phone Steve had sent.

Tony wasn't the least bit surprised to hear about the breach. Steve wasn't the type to leave people behind.

Rhodey's voice stopped any pity party before it could start. "Hey, what was in the package?"

Tony left the phone on the desk, and went back to where Rhodey was still working.

"Package was from Steve. Apparently he's… how do the kids say it these days? 'Sorry, not sorry'?" He could tell from the look on his friend's face that he hadn't quite managed to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"Tony…"

"And he broke his buddies out of the Raft. So that's good. We can tell Vision he can stop moping about Wanda being in lock up."

Tony walked over to a nearby table and picked up a tablet. Tossing Rhodey a grin, that probably didn't reach his eyes, he said, "Now, give me some feedback, damn you!"

* * *

Notes:

Tony's not entirely rational when he's an emotional wreck. It's a thing.

Also, this is a bit lacking in Peter because it's setting up Tony's mindset heading into Homecoming. Tony puts on a good show, but there's a lot happening under the surface that he doesn't let people see. Those things are going to affect some of the decisions he makes regarding Peter going forward.


	6. Chapter 6

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 6**

Summary:

Tony is tinkering and keeping busy, and has no idea what he's in for with Peter deciding to take on some bigger crime. Enter the Vulture.

* * *

Tony sat at a computer console, tinkering with a new design for a Spider suit. For now, he was calling it the "Iron Spider", but he was sure he'd have time later to come up with something better. Unlike Peter's first suit, this one would actually provide some protection against explosions.

Tony mentally shuddered at the thought of what could've happened to Peter in Germany. Time to think about something else, he decided.

"So what's your new title again?" Tony asked, glancing over his shoulder at Rhodey who was working out nearby in Tony's mini-gym with his new exoskeleton.

"Avengers Liaison. It basically means they want me to keep an eye on you and remind you of your duty to comply with the Accords."

Tony scoffed. "Ridiculous."

"I know."

"What makes them think I'd listen to you?"

"Exactly."

"So it's a desk job. They've basically sidelined you."

"Pretty much."

"And you're not gonna stand for that, right?"

"Not even a little."

"Excellent." Even in just a few weeks, Rhodey had come a long way from the first stumbling steps he'd taken with his new legs. As far as Tony was concerned, his friend was field-ready. The only thing missing was for Tony to figure out how to make the exoskeleton compact enough to fit inside the Iron Patriot armor. And he was close.

"I do have a question, though… about the kid."

Rhodey was a good friend, but if there was one area of his life he wasn't invited, it was this one. Tony hadn't told anyone about his connection to Peter, and he wasn't sure he ever would. It just felt safer to keep it to himself. Still, he supposed he could answer questions about the kid under the guise of an only-marginally-interested benefactor. Rhodey would be suspicious if Tony pretended not to know anything at all about Peter, but there was no way he'd let on just how close he actually was to the situation.

"Is this you asking, or the government?"

"Me. I'm just wondering what his status is. Is he gonna be an Avenger?"

"Off the record?"

"Completely."

"He's gone back to Queens to do the vigilante thing. He's made it clear that he's available should something come up, but he seems to be happy to do his own thing right now." Tony opted not to tell Rhodey about Peter's daily pleas to Happy asking for another mission.

"Huh. And the local authorities are okay with that?"

Tony shrugged as if he didn't care either way. "I haven't heard any different. But, Rhodey, the kid's typical MO is rescuing dogs from trees and helping little old ladies cross the street. It's nothing the local PD is going to object to."

"Cats."

"What?"

"Cats, Tony. People save cats from trees, not dogs."

Tony scoffed. "Whatever small animals get stuck in trees. I don't know."

Rhodey laughed. "Man, do you even have any idea what he's doing?"

Tony waved dismissively. "I've got people for that."

Which wasn't even a lie, technically, because he did have Happy keeping tabs on Peter.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Of course, rather than wait for Happy's report, Tony checked in himself once Rhodey left.

"Friday, what's Peter been up to today?"

"So far he's stopped some young men from spray painting a grocery store wall, and helped a couple move a large armoire up to a third floor apartment."

That sounded almost precious. Tony briefly wondered if there were photos of Spider-Man with an armoire on his back.

"What about the news outlets?"

"No recent reports on any major news stations, but there is a small community blog that now has a column continually reporting on Spider-man's latest activities called "The Spider-Watch."

"Ugh. Sounds like one of those plastic toys that comes out of those nickel machines."

"I could get into the blog and change the title if you'd like."

"Shame on you, Friday, we're in observation-only mode, remember?"

"Of course, Boss."

Tony had programed Peter's suit with a series of what he called "Intervention Protocols" that would automatically activate certain features of the suit, and alert him when triggered. He'd tried to include everything he could think of that would require intervention, since the suit monitored everything from his location, to his speed, altitude, and vitals. For any of the interventions to activate, though, Peter would have to be well outside of the normal parameters.

"Incoming call from Secretary Ross."

Tony's head dropped to his desk. "Put him through."

"Mr. Stark. Where are you on locating Steve Rogers and his cohorts?"

Tony lifted his head and adopted a voice so pleasant that it could only be interpreted as false.

"Secretary Ross, lovely to hear from you. I'm in exactly the same place as I was last time you called - and that's nowhere, in case you've forgotten. Steve is a World War II veteran; he knows how to stay away from tech and off the radar."

"What about satellite?"

"Still nothing. Maybe he's wearing a hat. Or, maybe he's backpacking through the Amazon jungle. I don't know."

"Keep me informed, Stark. And drop the attitude."

"Why, whatever do you-"

The line was cut off before he could finish what had promised to be an excellent imitation of a Southern Belle.

He hadn't lied to Ross, but he wasn't exactly telling the truth, either. While he was sure that Steve and his people were taking precautions, he hadn't even looked for them. He had absolutely zero interest in finding out what they were up to or where they might be.

Of course, if he had to guess, he'd probably start in Wakanda. T'Challa had been awfully friendly with Steve towards the end, and had immediately forgiven Bucky once he'd found out that the Winter Soldier hadn't actually been responsible for the king's death.

But Wakanda was a sovereign nation with no extradition agreement with the US, and now that T'Challa was king, no reason to turn over people they no-doubt saw as allies. It was the perfect place for US war criminals who happened to be on friendly terms with T'Challa to hide.

Still, Tony wasn't looking. There might still be a rift between him and Steve, but he wasn't about to let Ross lock half of the Avengers away in whatever place he'd come up with now that the Raft had proven incapable of keeping them.

"Friday, send one of those "world's greatest secretary" gift mugs to Ross' office. No return address; he'll know who it's from."

"Got it, Boss."

"And check my calendar. Am I free next week?"

"Next week is Mr. Patel's party in New Delhi, but you have not sent him your RSVP. Mr. Patel submitted the highest bid on the tower property."

"Right, right. Send a note to him. Find out if it's alright if I come out a day early. I want to get some shopping done while I'm there."

"Done, Boss."

Suddenly his cell phone started ringing, and Tony was half afraid for a second that Ross had somehow gotten his private number. Glancing at his screen, though, he saw it was Happy.

"Just the man I wanted to talk to!" he greeted Happy.

"What? Why, what's going on?"

"No, no, you first. You called me."

"I was just going to give you your weekly Spider update. It's pretty much the same as last week, though. He's still sticking to the same neighborhood, helping random people and stopping petty crime."

"Great."

"But I'm going to need a new cell phone plan the way he's texting me. He sends me constant messages. Constant. About literally nothing."

"You realize that you already have unlimited texting, right? You can't improve upon that Happy. You can't get more unlimited than unlimited."

He grinned hearing Happy grumble over the line.

"I know that. I just need less texts. He's killing me."

"I believe in your survival skills, Happy. I really do. Which brings me to my turn! Guess who's getting promoted to asset management?"

"Please say me. If you're going to tell me it's someone else, I'm hanging up."

"Of course it's you! Listen, I've got a buyer for the tower. I'll be in India next week doing a little celebrating with him, and I'm leaving you in charge of the crew handling the move."

"Great, I'll get it done; don't even worry about it. Does that mean I can hand the Spider assignment off to someone else?"

"Actually, I was thinking you could handle both as part of your new duties. You'll be managing both the physical assets and the ones that are more...personnel related."

"Peter doesn't even work for you though."

"True, but he's a future Avenger, so that makes him an important asset."

"Fine."

It actually sounded like Happy was doing his best to sound put out, but Tony had the feeling that he'd agree to just about anything to be put in charge of the tower move. He'd been wanting to be involved in asset management for a long time now, and being in charge of moving all the assets from the tower to the compound was huge.

"Since you're running point on the move, Security will be reporting to you too. Set them up however you want, just make sure nothing gets lost in transit."

"Got it. I'll get it done."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony was in the middle of a nice relaxing day when an emergency alert from Friday came through on his phone. He quickly slipped one of his bluetooth earpieces into his ear - Friday never interrupted without good reason.

"What is it?"

"Peter's suit is quickly climbing in altitude and is about to trigger the parachute intervention."

Tony stepped away from the party and activated his remote armor controls. "Send me his location, and activate the suit that's still at the tower. I'll take command from here."

"Suit is active, you should have control now. Parachute intervention has triggered!"

"On my way. Status? Is he still climbing?"

"Negative. He's falling. It doesn't appear that the parachute opened properly, or it was damaged after deployment."

"I'm closing on his position now. Damn it, how the hell did he even get that high? There aren't any tall buildings in this area!"

"Preliminary data indicates he was lifted into the air by something. He's landed in the water!"

"Shit. I'm ten seconds out. Is he coming up?"

"No, he's tangled in the parachute. He doesn't appear to be attempting to swim to the surface. He may be confused or in shock."

Tony's armor arrived in seconds that easily felt like years, diving into the water and going straight for Peter's GPS signal. He emerged with Peter in tow just a few seconds after that. Tony was panting, despite the fact that his body was still only standing on the outskirts of a party in India.

"He's not moving, Friday. Vitals?"

"His vitals are good. He's probably in shock."

Tony wanted desperately to shake Peter and scream at him - he didn't know what he'd say, but right now his heart was pounding and he was so incredibly angry. Peter was supposed to stay safe. He was supposed to rescue kittens and give old ladies directions. He couldn't fathom how any of that would get him hauled up into the stratosphere and dunked in water.

"Oh… hey" came Peter's voice, as if he was only just realizing that he was being flown to safety by Iron Man.

He resisted the impulse to open with yelling, and flew over to a nearby playground, setting Peter gently on ground.

And the kid promptly climbed up onto one of the playground toys and started spewing some jumbled story about a winged villain who was trafficking high tech weapons. He sounded excited… as if he'd just had an adventure instead of nearly being killed.

"How'd you find me? Did you put a tracker in my suit or something?"

"I put everything in your suit, including this heater." Tony had Friday activate the suit's heating system. The kid didn't appear to be in shock, but he was definitely shivering.

"Oh that's better, thanks."

And Tony couldn't resist anymore. "What were you _thinking?_ "

"The guy with the wings is obviously the source of the weapons. I've gotta take him down."

"Take him _down_ , now, huh?" He couldn't believe this kid. "Steady, Crockett, there are people who handle this sort of thing."

"The Avengers?"

"No, this is a little below their pay grade."

The kid either didn't sense his concerns, or had decided to dismiss them all together.  
"Anyway, Mr. Stark, you didn't have to come all the way out here. I had that. I was fine."

If only he could get Peter to realize just how far from fine he'd been. "Oh, I'm not here. Thank God this place has wifi, or you'd be toast right now. Thank Ganesh while you're at it."

It was obvious that he wasn't going to get through to the kid. Not now, with adrenaline flooding his body. But maybe Tony could put the hero worship to good use and just make it a simple request.

"Look, forget the flying vulture guy, _please_."

"Why?"

"Why? _Because I said so_!" And damn it, now he sounded like his old man - not something to be proud of. He took a deep breath, and quietly apologized to someone at the party who was looking at him like he was nuts after his outburst. "Sorry, talking to a teenager."

"Just stay close to the ground. Build up your game helping the little people, like that lady that bought you the churro. Can't you just be a friendly… neighborhood Spider-Man?"

A small part of his brain got busy trying to remember if Happy had actually reported the churro incident to him, or if he'd gotten that information from Friday. Hopefully the kid wouldn't notice if he had more information than he was supposed to have. Though the chances of Peter having _not_ told Happy about the churro were probably slim to none. The kid was in the habit of giving Happy minute-by-minute updates.

"But I'm ready for more than that now!" And yeah, the kid was actually still arguing. Unbelievable.

Tony couldn't keep the condescension from his voice. "No, you're _not_."

"That's not what you thought when I took on Captain America."

"Trust me, kid. If Cap had wanted to lay you out, he would've. Listen to me, if you come across these weapons again, _call Happy_."

He put down his drink and climbed into his car. He was in no mood to stick around the party after this. Peter may have been raised by Parkers, but he argued like a Stark and had as thick a head as any of them had. Tony had never encountered someone so frustrating. He revved the engine.

"Are you driving?"

He was done with the conversation. He had to cut it off before he said something idiotic like 'you have to listen to me - I'm your father!'

"You know, it's never too early to start thinking about college. I've got some pull at MIT. End call."

Tony gripped the wheel tightly to keep his hands from shaking as he drove back to his hotel. Teenagers were ridiculous. Teenagers with Stark blood were even worse. Teenagers with Stark blood AND super powers? Impossible.


	7. Chapter 7

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 7**

Summary:

A certain "glowy thingy" creates problems for Peter, and headaches for Tony.

* * *

Tony paced his suite in the hotel.

"Okay, let's go over this. How did I manage to miss Peter taking on weapons dealers? He was talking like he'd run into these guys before. Why wasn't that in any of the reports?"

"The last report you asked for was the previous afternoon in which Peter stopped a bike thief and gave a woman directions."

"Right, the churro lady."

"Correct. And immediately after that, Peter witnessed ATMs being broken into at a nearby bank and went to stop the robbery. He reported it to Happy, but Happy has not yet submitted his weekly report."

"Okay, I could see how an ATM robbery might not be an immediate concern, but if they were using high tech weaponry during the robbery, that should've been a red flag. That should've been reported to Damage Control right away."

"I'm uncertain whether or not Peter made that part clear to Happy. He tends to get excited and ramble."

"And the kid wouldn't think to make an emphasis on that. Everything's important, as far as he's concerned."

Tony sighed. This was a mess.

"So Peter confronted the bank robbers, then went home that night…"

"The next night he opted to go to a party thrown by someone at his school rather than go on patrol. But while outside on the roof, he saw a weapon being discharged in the distance and went to investigate. He was caught while attempting to apprehend the weapons dealers."

Tony couldn't help but wonder why he'd even taken the suit to a school party to begin with. Peter had already shown himself to be the type of kid that didn't seek attention, so he must've gone to the party expecting trouble.

"And why, exactly, wasn't I informed that any of this was happening?"

"You hadn't asked for another report, and none of the intervention protocols had been triggered."

Tony's stomach sank. So, it was his fault. He'd set up a system where he was only informed when Peter was in grave danger, and now he was upset that he hadn't known sooner that the kid was in trouble. He hadn't asked for another report because he'd been busy in India and he'd just assumed that Peter would be doing what he normally did. Instead, the kid had literally gone from giving old ladies directions to going after serious criminals.

He'd basically done the equivalent of leaving a toddler in a room full of matches and assuming everything was fine until the fire department came.

He was an idiot.

"Friday, alert the FBI to the existence of these arms dealers in Queens. Emphasize that they seem to be dealing in alien tech. Send them all the relevant information the suit has gathered that doesn't give away Peter's identity."

"On it, Boss."

"And keep tabs on the investigation."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony still had a couple more days in India, so he kept the remote armor controls close and asked Friday to give him regular reports. He wouldn't be making the same mistake twice.

Unfortunately, the time difference meant that he wasn't sleeping as much as he'd like. Peter's normal active times in the suit - from afternoon until later into the night - were currently Tony's middle-of-the-night to early morning. But, he wanted regular reports.

Even if those reports lately had amounted to Peter staying in all Saturday afternoon.

And just like clockwork, Friday chimed in with another report. "It's now 4pm Sunday in New York, and Peter is in his apartment. He has not used the suit."

"Great. Soon as I start asking for regular reports, the kid decides to spend the weekend inside."

Monday was equally uneventful, but Tuesday rolled around soon enough. Before he'd even received his first report from Friday, Happy was calling him.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing, just checking in. And, I wanted to give you a Spider update and a moving update."

"Okay, shoot."

"Wait, I just realized what time it is there. Sorry, Tony. Want me to call back in the morning?

"No, I wasn't asleep. Don't be a tease; give me the reports."

"Okay, well…" and Tony could tell right away by Happy's 'trust-me-I'm-a-professional' voice that everything was fine.

"I got an alert that Peter was leaving New York so I checked in with him. It's fine - he's headed to D.C. for a school decathlon. I also got the last of the less-sensitive equipment out of the tower and it's arrived safely at the compound. One more trip for the remaining items should do it, and we'll be using one of the automated Stark jets for increased security."

"Sounds utterly perfect. Thanks, Happy."

Once Happy disconnected, Tony decided he needed more info on Peter.

"Friday, find that school decathlon in D.C. See if you can get it's schedule."

"Found it. Schools are traveling to D.C. today, are scheduled to stay in local hotels overnight, and then compete tomorrow. After the competition, most schools are doing sightseeing in the area and then going back."

"Fantastic. Sounds like the perfect time to head back to New York."

-0-0-0-0-0-

For the plane ride back to New York, Tony opted to sleep. He wasn't totally sleep-deprived; he'd been resting here and there between reports and getting business done, but it was nice to imagine a solid 15 hours of uninterrupted rest. Peter would be busy at his decathlon, Happy would be making the final preparations for the move… there was nothing to worry about.

What a nice change that would be.

Tony's flight left in the morning, which was late night on the East Coast. Peter would be going to bed to get a good night's rest before his decathlon the next day. In fact, according to the GPS, which he had Friday check one last time before takeoff, Peter was at the hotel, safe and sound.

"Okay, Friday, go ahead and suspend the reports for the duration of the flight; I'm going to get some sleep."

"Rest well, Boss."

Of course, as was usually the case with these things, Tony couldn't drift right to sleep as soon as the plane was in the air. He may have been tired, but his internal clock was telling him it was daytime, so his body was fighting rest.

Opening up his laptop, he decided to work a little more on the Iron Spider suit to pass the time. He'd just about figured out how to give Peter a solid amount of protection without compromising his flexibility too much. Of course, running simulations only went so far; in order to really fine tune the suit he'd need Peter to try it out.

After a few hours of working, his body was finally starting to give up on the whole 'daytime' idea and he was getting tired enough to sleep. He closed his laptop and drifted off, imagining what tests he could run in realtime with Peter in the new suit.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony woke up to his stomach grumbling. "Ugh. Friday, what time is it?"

"It is 12:03pm, Eastern Standard Time. You have been asleep for approximately ten hours."

He must've been way more tired than he'd thought; there were only about 2 hours left before he'd land back in New York.

"What's Peter up to?"

"There has been no data reported by the suit. The GPS signal is still in D.C."

"Guess he decided not to wear the suit to the decathlon - probably smart." Tony stretched and decided he'd better go to the galley and see what there was to eat.

He was halfway through a better-than-average cob salad, when Friday sounded an alert and turned on a nearby screen.

"Boss, there's a problem in D.C."

The screen was playing a live news report from a station in D.C. covering a "developing incident" at the Washington Monument. Apparently there'd been some kind of explosion inside the elevator and…

"What the hell is he doing?!"

… Spider-Man was launching himself through a window near the top of the monument.

"What in the- How old is this footage? Is this live?"

"This particular clip is from approximately five minutes ago, when the news cameras arrived on the scene. However, some stations are now beginning to show footage taken earlier by cellphones showing Spider-Man climbing the outside of the monument."

"What's the current situation? What is the suit reporting?"

Tony's mind was racing. His closest remote suit was still at the tower in New York. Even at top speed, it would take too long to get it from New York to D.C.

"The suit is not reporting anything, and the GPS is still showing a location of Peter's hotel."

Which wasn't possible, since Peter was clearly in the suit. It should've been reporting something unless…

"God DAMN it! He took out the tracker… and apparently found a way to disable the Training Wheels protocol."

He'd designed the suit so that once the Training Wheels protocol was disabled it would stop automatically sending activity reports to Friday. He'd figured that when the time came, and Peter was ready for a full-featured suit, he wouldn't need constant monitoring.

Of course he'd imagined that happening sometime in the distant future, not a couple of months after the kid started using the new suit.

"Force the issue. Bypass the suit security and find out what's going on."

"Bypassing suit security."

Tony watched the news as they kept reporting what they knew - which was basically nothing. Something had exploded, they believed the elevator might be compromised, and some masked vigilante was shown again and again forcing his way into the monument through a tiny window while police shouted at him to stand down.

"According to the suit data, Peter stopped the elevator from falling long enough to rescue the passengers. He is now at the bottom of the elevator shaft, working his way outside toward where he apparently left his clothes."

"So he's done." Tony sighed and sat back, running both hands through his hair, wondering how soon Peter was going to make it all fall out.

Unfortunately, Tony had no way to verify from the plane that the scene was actually safe and there were no more bombs anywhere.

That was probably the only good thing about the Training Wheels protocol being deactivated - the suit would be communicating with Peter directly now. There was no way it wouldn't warn him if more explosives were detected nearby.

Now Tony had a decision to make. He could reactivate Training Wheels, and this time raise the security level so high that Peter would need a super computer and a couple of months to crack it.

Or, he could just let this one go.

Putting an AI together for Peter's suit hadn't been something he'd taken lightly. He'd started with the basic framework needed to run the suit and interface with Friday… but then when it came time to add elements of personality, using one of his ready-made AI's hadn't felt right.

So he'd started from scratch.

An adult female. Kind, supportive, utterly sincere, a good listener… everything he figured a young geek with few friends would probably appreciate. It was only after he'd finished that it'd occurred to him that he'd basically been building Peter a pseudo-mother.

Not long after that, he'd realized that the very same attributes he'd put into the suit's AI were the ones he remembered most about Peter's mother Sandra. And boy, was that ever a secret to take straight to his grave.

And now he was left with this nice little conundrum. Even though he knew with 100 percent certainty that the AI in the suit was just a computer, taking it- taking _her_ away from Peter after he'd already met her almost felt like ripping another person out of his life.

Pushing his half-eaten salad to the side, Tony laid his head down in despair.

"Friday, remind me how I got myself into this mess?"

Tony huffed a little laugh at Friday's answer: "You didn't wear a condom, Boss."

* * *

Notes:

I had to change a tiny thing from the movie in order to make my story timeline make sense. Regarding the timeline between Liz's party and the events at the Staten Island Ferry, I'm assuming everything takes place back-to-back as it appears to in the movie. So forget about the part in the movie where the school's news show says the decathlon took place over the weekend. It was midweek, as far as this story is concerned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 8**

Summary:

Tony takes the suit away.

* * *

Tony kept the news playing the rest of his flight back to New York. They still had no idea what had exploded or who was responsible, but apparently the major networks had decided that Spider-Man was one of the good guys. One news anchor even speculated that he'd been sent in by Tony Stark as part of the Avengers Initiative.

He'd snorted at that one; they couldn't be further from the truth.

Of course, that hadn't stopped other news outlets from picking up on it, or Ross' people from calling his staff at the compound to find out if it was true.

Ross himself finally called just as Tony was settling in for a quiet dinner that evening and Friday routed it through to his cell phone.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Secretary?"

"Are you working with this Spider-Man character?"

"As a rule, I don't hang out with people who wear spandex. I thought you knew this about me."

"Don't bullshit me. He was with the team in Germany, Stark. He was fighting on your side."

"And I'll remind you of what I told you then: I have no idea who he is. He wears a unitard from head-to-toe."

"He operates in New York. Do you really expect me to believe that you don't know the identity of someone in your own backyard?"

"I don't know if you've heard, but we're actually located upstate now."

"You better not be hiding things from me, Stark. It won't be good for you when I find out."

"Currently, I'm not hiding anything except my desire to get back to my dinner - which you interrupted, by the way. But I'll let you know if anyone in spandex jogs across my lawn. Have a great night!"

He ended the call to Ross' indignant sputtering, a sound that never failed to make him smile.

-0-0-0-0-0-

By the next morning he'd decided that maybe it was time to try something a little different with Peter. Yes, the kid had taken out the suit's tracker and disabled his Training Wheels, but he'd also saved a bunch of people from falling to their deaths. Maybe it was time to accentuate the positive.

He figured he'd give Peter a call after school just to tell him that he'd done well saving those people, even if he'd gone about it the wrong way. If there was one thing Tony could definitely understand, it was the need to assert your independence. Of course, it wasn't going to fly; Tony was still going to have Peter submit to some kind of system of checking in, but maybe if he started with the positive he'd get a better response.

It was worth a shot, anyway. It was something his dad had never tried with him, so if nothing else, the novelty was appealing.

He had a meeting in the city later in the morning, so he grabbed his tablet and figured he'd spend the drive updating Rhodey's newest exoskeleton. He was sure the latest version would fit under the armor, and even under his friend's clothes, but he still had to run a few strength tests.

He'd nearly reached his destination, when Friday broke in with an alert.

"Boss, there's been a development in the investigation. The FBI has traced some of the suspects to a weapons deal taking place on the 11am Staten Island ferry. They've set up a sting in order to catch both the buyers and the sellers, and to confiscate any alien technology. Damage Control has been alerted and will be standing by to collect whatever they find."

Tony glanced at the time and saw that it as nearly 11am. "Great, so it all works out in the end, huh? The FBI will catch the bad guys while Peter studies for a brighter future. Or something."

Except for some reason he wasn't able to put himself at ease. Maybe it was just the fact that he'd had free access to Peter's whereabouts for so long that he wasn't able to completely relax without knowing for sure where Peter was.

The suit's GPS, incredibly, was still sitting in a hotel room in D.C. He made a mental note to ask Peter the name of the place because they didn't seem to be very good at cleaning.

"Friday, do me a favor and ping Peter's cell phone. Not having a GPS location on him is making me a bit antsy." He just wanted to be completely sure that Peter was no where near the ferry this morning, as unlikely as that would be.

"Pinging now… his phone is near the Staten Island ferry dock."

Of course it was. Of. Course.

"Call Peter."

Tony took a deep breath. As soon as the call connected, he'd go for the casual approach.

"Mr. Parker, got a sec?"

"I'm actually at school."

The kid was lying to his face. Maybe he could still salvage this, though.

"Nice work in D.C. My dad never really gave me a lot of support and I'm just trying to break the cycle of shame." Tony absently wondered if he could embarrass the truth out of him. Isn't that what always worked on those half-hour family sitcoms? The parents tell the kids how great they are, causing the kid to break down and admit everything they've done wrong?

"Uh, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now."

"Don't cut me off when I'm complimenting you. Anyway, great things are about to happ-"

The ferry horn sounded. Perfect, now he'd have to confess. "What is that?"

"Uh, I'm at band practice."

"That's odd. Happy told me you quit band six weeks ago. What's up?"

"I gotta go. End call."

"Hey!" And the call was disconnected. Clearly sitcoms were spreading falsehoods; the soft approach did not work.

Except this time he wasn't at 30,000 feet, miles away from the action with a remote suit too far to help; he was already in the city and he had a suit with him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony was closing on the ferry's location when he saw it start to split apart. Even from a distance, he could see Peter shooting webbing, desperately trying to keep the ship together.

"Friday, deploy independent thrusters. Let's push from the outside."

Tony managed to get the ferry upright and mostly sea-worthy again, but seeing Peter in so far over his head had done nothing for his mood.

When was the kid going to get it? It seemed like no matter what Tony said, Peter was going to throw himself into danger over and over again. No matter how stupid it was. On top of that, he was now ditching school to go confront arms dealers with alien technology that could slice through tons of steel like it was butter.

By the time Tony met up with Peter on a nearby rooftop, he was seething.

"Previously on 'Peter Screws the Pooch', I tell you to stay away from this, and instead, you hacked a multimillion dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do."

"Is everyone okay?"

"No thanks to you."

"No thanks to me? Those weapons were out there and I tried to tell you about it but you didn't listen. None of this would've happened if you had just listened to me! If you even cared you'd actually be here."

Tony opened his suit and stepped out. The audacity of this kid. He felt like all he'd been doing lately was worrying about Peter and the kid had made it impossible to keep him safe at every turn.

"I did listen, kid. Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said I was crazy to recruit a 14 year-old kid."

"I'm 15."

He knew Peter was 15, but he was well past being in the mood for technicalities. The point was that he was a child. He had no idea how things worked in the real world. He could've been killed, and he was acting like there was absolutely no problem with him going off on his own against criminals wielding dangerous alien tech.

"No, this is where you zip it, all right? The adult is talking. What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? Because that's on you. And if you died…I feel like that's on me. I don't need that on my conscience."

"Yes sir, I'm sorry. I understand…"

"Sorry doesn't cut it."

"I just wanted to be like you."

Tony barely held back a wince. He was no role model, and Peter was already way too much like him.

"And I wanted you to be better." Tony sighed. "Okay, it's not working out. I'm gonna need the suit back."

"For how long?"

"Forever. Yeah, that's how it works."

Peter kept pleading for him to change his mind, but all Tony could think about was how this was all his fault.

Looking back, Tony wasn't entirely sure that making the spider suit for Peter had been the right move. At the time he'd thought it was a simple matter of helping Peter be safe; if he was going to do the vigilante thing he should at least have the proper tech for it and be monitored.

But now he realized that giving him the suit had changed things for Peter. It had legitimized his activities, endorsed them, even. So now instead of a kid running around stopping muggers and 2 bit thugs in a pair of sweat pants and a ski mask, Peter was playing Junior Avenger, trying to take on weapons dealers and break up crime rings - things he had no business getting into.

That was on Tony.

Of course, taking him along to Germany had been another mistake. Tony had been so anxious to get Peter some good tech and see what he could do that he'd made him think that he was somehow on equal footing with the Avengers. Now this kid with no experience in anything but petty crime and acts of community service was getting himself into situations that were way outside of his abilities.

He was going to get himself killed. All because when he'd started doing something dangerous, instead of putting a stop to it like any normal adult would, he'd basically rewarded the kid and dared him to do more.

That was ending now. He ignored Peter's pleas and told himself that it was better that Peter live hating him than die loving him.

"Let's have it."

"Please you don't understand - this is all I have. I'm nothing without this suit."

"If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it. Okay? God, I sound like my dad." Another point against him. Now he was an asshole, too.

"I don't have any other clothes," the kid admitted quietly.

"Okay, we'll sort that out."

He wanted to reach out and grab Peter and explain. He wanted to tell him that he didn't even blame him. Tony was the adult here; it was his fault. Tony had failed completely, just as he'd been doing the whole of Peter's life.

And now the kid looked miserable. Because that's what Tony did, wasn't it? He brought misery to people. If it weren't a very real matter of life and death, Tony might even have given in and let Peter keep the suit.

But damn it, if there was ever one thing he was determined to get right in his life, it was this. He couldn't let Peter get himself killed. He just couldn't.

"Wait here, kid."

Tony left Peter on the roof, heading to a hotel gift shop not far from the docks to look for something that would fit Peter. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to choose from. The "I survived my trip to NYC" shirt wasn't awful… at least it was white, but the only choices for bottoms had been some satin short-shorts, or fluffy pink sweatpants. He went for the sweats for modesty's sake, and then grabbed a pair of flip-flops.

When he got back, he found Peter in the same position he'd left him; sitting slumped over, staring out at the water where the sun was already starting to set.

"Sorry, kid, this was all they had."

He turned his back as Peter changed, and then took the suit from him.

"Head downstairs to the lobby. Happy will be by in a few minutes to drive you home."

Once Peter left, Tony took his place on the roof, slumped over, thinking about the mess everything had become. Why couldn't things ever work out right? Other people seemed to have no trouble ushering their kids into adulthood alive and relatively happy, why couldn't Tony?

Except, he wasn't really a parent. He could invent things that other people couldn't even comprehend, but he couldn't figure out how to keep Peter safe without making the kid hate him.

Below, Tony heard Happy arrive and greet Peter, and the car door open and close again as Peter got in.

"Well, Stark, what did you expect?" He muttered quietly. "You're just not cut out for this."

Tony flew back to the compound. He'd send someone for his car later.


	9. Chapter 9

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 9: INTERLUDE - Ned**

Summary:

This chapter is a brief departure - it's from Ned's POV instead of Tony's and it attempts to answer the many questions Homecoming left in the air, like how Aunt May missed Peter's being beat up after the dance.

* * *

Great, now the school was probably going to tell his mom that he'd been looking at porn during the school dance. Ned supposed it was better than her finding out the truth.

 _Oh hey, Mom. Yeah, I was just helping Peter try to stop a villain who happens to be Liz's dad. No biggie. Just a little vigilante justice on a Friday night. Can we have spaghetti tomorrow?_

That'd go over REAL well, he was sure.

Ned made it back to the dance just in time to hear an announcement. Apparently, the police had been called regarding an "incident" in the school parking lot and they were going to be locking down the dance, effective immediately. No one was going to go outside until their parent or guardian came to pick them up. The dance was effectively over.

The entire room erupted in groaning and complaining.

The wheels started spinning in Ned's head. They may have taken away his computer access, but he was still Peter's Guy in the Chair; he needed to do everything he could to give Peter a chance to come out of this with his his secret identity intact.

First, since the school was probably about to notify all the parents that the dance was over, he needed to deal with Peter's aunt.

He called Peter's apartment, praying that she hadn't decided to spend the night out on the town since Peter was occupied.

"Parker residence."

"Hi, Mrs. Parker! It's Ned."

"Ned! What's going on? Why are you calling me during the dance? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. It's just that there was some kind of incident in the parking lot - someone vandalized one of the school buses or something - and they're making us all go home. They're going to start contacting all the parents to come pick us up."

"Oh Ned, I'm so sorry! I can be there for you guys in fifteen minutes."

"Actually, I was wondering if Peter could stay over tonight. My mom is already here as a chaperone, and she said it would be fine if Peter stayed as long as I asked you about it."

"Well I guess that's okay then. Can I talk to Peter?"

"Yeah, definitely. I'll tell him to call you. He's just kinda talking to Liz right now… I think they're upset that the dance is ending early."

Suddenly Mrs. Parker's voice took on a note of understanding. "Ah, I got it. Okay, no rush; let him finish his conversation with Liz. Just remind him to call me before it gets too late, okay?"

"Okay, thank you! Bye, Mrs. Parker!"

Ned sighed. First problem solved. He worked his way through the crowd of milling students over to the punch bowl where his mom was standing guard.

"Hey, mom?"

"Yes, Pumpkin?"

"Mom, no nicknames at school!" Ned stepped closer so no one would over hear his conversation.

"Hey, can Peter stay the night?"

"Sure! Peter's always welcome. Are we giving him a ride?"

"Uh… no. I think he's going to have his aunt take him home to change first, and then she'll drop him off."

"Sounds good, sweetie." She smirked. "Sorry, I mean-" she dropped her voice an octave "sounds good, Mr. Leeds."

His mother. Ned rolled his eyes and started making his way towards the bathrooms.

Because the gym lockers were right next to the bathrooms.

Ned told the chaperone at the gym door that he was just going to the bathroom, and slipped through the open door leading to the hallway. Checking to make sure that the man's head was turned away, he veered towards the boys' locker room at the last second and went inside. Thankfully, he still remembered the combination to Peter's gym locker from back when they'd shared for a week while Ned's was being fixed. He opened it and retrieved Peter's gym clothes, figuring that if he managed to make this work, and Peter ended up at his house, he'd need clothes besides his red and blue outfit - and Ned had no idea where Peter had stashed his clothes from the dance.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Later at his place, Ned found himself hoping that Peter would show up soon because his mom was starting to ask questions.

"Is Peter still coming over, Honey?"

"Yeah, uh… in a bit. He texted and said his aunt is grilling him about his date with Liz."

His mom made one of those ridiculous cooing noises and started to wander off. "Let me know when he gets here, I'll be watching Netflix in my room."

"Kay, Mom."

It hadn't even been that long since the dance, but it felt like forever because Ned had been in a state of mild panic the entire time. He really hoped Peter remembered to go get his phone out of Liz's dad's car. Right now Ned had no way to know what was even going on with Peter. For all he knew, he could've gone back to his own place to go bed.

Ned figured if he didn't hear from him, that's what he'd assume had happened and he'd just tell his mom that Peter opted to stay home after all. And then he'd just hope it was true.

He went to his room and turned on the TV. He may not be able to contact Peter, but if he was out there fighting bad guys, there was a chance something would end up on the news.

As soon as he flipped it over to the news station, his mouth dropped open. They were reporting that a private plane had crashed on Coney Island. That had to be Happy's plane that Peter said the winged guy was going to rob.

Before Ned could figure out whether the plane going down meant success or failure for the mission, his cell phone started ringing - it was Peter!

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? I just saw the plane crash on the news!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I stopped him, Ned."

"Where are you now? I've gotta update you on what I told your aunt."

Ned listened in concern as Peter seemed to hesitate. "Uh… I had to go back to the warehouse to get my phone from the car. I'm about a block away from there now, so the cops don't see me when they come to investigate the building collapse."

"The what?! What collapsed? What happened? Wait, you know what, tell me in person. Come over to my place. I've already cleared it with my mom and your aunt."

"Slight problem with that, dude. I'm still in red and blue."

"Got ya covered; I brought your gym clothes with me. Just come through my window and change, then you can come in the front door and say hi to my mom and stuff so she knows you're here."

"Thanks, Ned."

"All part of a day's work for the Guy in the Chair." What a relief.

-0-0-0-0-0-

But when he actually came through the window, Ned's feeling of relief evaporated.

"What the hell, man, I thought you said you were fine!"

Peter hesitated, his mask in one hand, and one foot still dangling out the window. "What?"

"Dude, your face! It looks like you got punched in the face! My mom can't see you like that!"

Peter reached up and touched his face as if he were only just realizing that he'd been hurt. "Oh… yeah, I got punched in the face."

Ned started pacing. "Okay, okay, we can make this work. Uh… change into your gym clothes still… go down and knock on the door… and we'll just go straight up to my room. My mom's in the middle of a Netflix marathon; she won't get up right away. If she comes to my room we'll have the lights off and I'll just say you're already asleep."

Ned went to his closet to grab an extra blanket and pillow for Peter, and when he turned around he almost dropped them. Peter already had his yellow gym shorts on, and was in the process of changing his top half. His chest was absolutely covered in marks. Awful, ugly, dark splotches that spread over his chest and stomach.

"Holy shit, Peter… I think you need a doctor."

Peter jerked in surprise and then winced as the rest of his Spider-Man outfit came off. He stood there clutching it in his hands, looking at Ned with wide eyes.

"It's fine, I promise."

Part of Ned couldn't help but notice how similar this was to the time when Ned first found out Peter was Spider-Man. He'd stood in front of him just like that, denying what was clear as day.

"Peter…" Ned set the blankets aside and stepped closer. With the shirt all the way off now, he could see that the marks went all the way up to his shoulder. In fact, his right shoulder looked a little swollen. Ned had never been bothered by violence before, but this was way worse than any video game he'd ever played, or any show he'd ever watched. This was real, and it was his best friend. Ned had to blink quickly as moisture flooded his eyes against his will. "… you're not fine."

Peter grimaced, and pulled the school t-shirt over his head before reaching up to grab his shoulder. "Okay, it hurts a little, but I swear I heal quickly. I'll be good."

Before Ned could stop him, Peter hopped out the window again and made his way downstairs to knock on the front door. Ned hurried down, needing to get there before his mom decided to get up.

Letting his friend in, Ned called out "Mom, Peter's here."

"Hi, Mrs. Leeds!" Peter called out next to him.

"We're going to my room!"

Ned and Peter rushed back up to his room and shut the door just as Ned's mom was calling out "Okay, have fun!"

There were a million things Ned wanted to say, but all the thoughts were tripping over each other on their way out of his mouth. Finally, the only thing that made it was "You've gotta call your aunt. I told her you were coming over and that you couldn't call her right away because you were talking with Liz."

Ned started moving the books and backpack and other junk he'd left on his bed, listening with half an ear as Peter said good night to his aunt.

Just as Peter seemed to be wrapping it up, it occurred to Ned that he'd probably need ice. That's what you were supposed to use on bruises, right? Even the horrible ones?

Ned quickly pulled out his phone and searched the internet for "what to do for horrible bruises." As he suspected, WebMD suggested ice.

He slipped out the door and went down to the kitchen to fill a couple of bags with ice. By the time he got back, Peter had finished his call and was laying face-up on the bed, eyes closed. At least Ned could see that he was breathing even from across the room.

"Peter?"

"Mmm?"

Ned came over and gently laid one of the ice bags on Peter's stomach.

"Homigod!" Peter yelped and knocked the bag off. "What the hell, dude! That's cold!"

"Uh yeah it's cold, it's ice. It's for your horrible bruises."

Peter grimaced as Ned put the bag back in it's place. And then a couple more like it went onto his shoulder and chest.

"So what happened? Did Liz' dad do this to you?"

"Some of it, yeah. He kinda knocked a building down on me… and after we crashed the plane he slammed me onto the beach a bunch of times."

Ned almost felt dizzy listening to this. Before he could ask what exactly it meant to "kinda" knock a building down on someone, and if Peter was actually been in the plane when it crashed, and if so, how he was still alive, his friend said more.

"It's okay, though. He's caught now. I managed to stop him before he could take any of Mr. Stark's stuff, and I made sure Happy and his people got him on the beach before I left."

"Peter, I don't think anything about this is okay."

Peter shrugged, and then flinched, grabbing his shoulder.

Ned made himself busy grabbing the extra blankets to make himself a bed on the floor. It looked like Peter was probably going to fall asleep right where he'd landed, which was fine because Ned wasn't about to let him sleep on the floor all beat up like that.

-0-0-0-0-0-

An hour later, Ned was still wide awake staring up at the dark ceiling when Peter's phone started ringing. He dove for it, silencing it before it could wake is friend. It was Happy.

"Ned speaking," he answered quietly.

"You again. Listen, let me talk to Peter."

"Sorry, he's asleep right now."

"Is he okay?"

And wasn't that funny; the guy actually sounded like he might be concerned. That was a huge change from the way he'd acted just a few hours earlier.

"Well the winged guy knocked a building on top of him and beat the crap out of him, but he'll be fine. We've got ice here." Ned knew it sounded ridiculous, but he kind of wanted Happy to keep being concerned. The guy had been a dick when they'd needed help.

"What? A building? Wait, I need to know if he's-"

Ned interrupted with a cheerful voice. "I'll have him give you a call later. Thanks for nothing, Happy!"

Then he hung up and turned the phone off.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Ned's mom worked Saturdays, so they managed to stay in his room and off anyone's radar until Saturday afternoon. By then Peter's face actually looked okay, but his torso was still several different colors, and he still didn't seem to be able to use his shoulder without pain.

May wouldn't be put off any longer, though. Apparently she was anxious to see Peter and hear how the dance had gone, at least before it'd ended prematurely.

"Well, as long as you don't let her see your chest, you'll be fine."

"Thanks for everything, Ned. Seriously. You really are the guy in the chair."

Ned nodded his head in acceptance, even though Peter still didn't say it like the title it was. He could hear the difference when it was said with Capital Letters.

Guy in the Chair.


	10. Chapter 10

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 10**

Summary:

Tony finds out about the plane heist, spends the weekend busy thinking and preparing, and then invites Peter to join the Avengers.

(Warnings for a panic attack and some self-loathing.)

* * *

In the end, as seemed to be the case with all things involving Peter, Tony was completely blindsided by what happened.

After the incident on the ferry, Tony only received occasional reports on Peter. It seemed that the kid was taking a little time off from being Spider-Man, and was also serving quite a sentence in detention. Since he'd stopped reporting in, Happy took it upon himself to keep loose tabs on the kid, but there'd been no sightings of Spider-Man at all.

It left Tony feeling unsettled; he hadn't wanted to break the kid's spirit, he just wanted to wake him up to the very real danger he seemed so eager to swing into.

Meanwhile, Tony continued to keep up with the investigation. The ring leader had escaped the FBI sting, and though there'd been no activity recently, Tony was sure he'd pop up again.

Tony figured he'd let Peter stew a bit; it wouldn't hurt for him to be more focused on school for a while and really understand the gravity of what happened at the ferry. Then, when the time was right he'd send the suit back and ask Peter to check in BEFORE he ran off to fight criminals, not after.

Actually, he was still trying to work out a system for Peter - which types of crimes he could handle on his own, which ones he'd need to get permission for, and which he was definitely not to touch. A chart might eventually be involved; Tony understood that kids liked visuals.

On a whim he started to work on a color scheme for said chart when his phone rang.

"Happy, what's up? Move all done?"

"Everything happened so fast. I'm so sorry, Tony. The plane… it was attacked."

Tony stood and paced across his lab on auto-pilot. He needed more information, and he needed it now. Happy wasn't talking fast enough for his liking.

"Who attacked it? Did they get anything? Any casualties? Where's the plane now? Come on, Happy, you gotta give me more than that!"

"Uh, it was… it was the arms dealer Peter's been after. And no, he didn't get anything. The plane crashed on Coney Island. Peter… it was Peter. Peter stopped him, Tony."

Peter's name reverberated through Tony's mind like someone had rung a gong. Peter was supposed to be at a dance. Peter wasn't supposed to be going out as Spider-Man. Peter wasn't supposed to be going after this guy at all anymore. Peter didn't have his suit.

Peter didn't have his suit.

Peter didn't have his suit.

"Tony? Tony, are you still there?"

"Was he hurt?"

"Who, the vulture guy?"

"No, the kid, Happy. Was the kid hurt?"

"Oh, I don't know. I don't think so… he left a note."

Of course he left a note. It didn't matter to Peter whether it was a stolen bicycle or millions of dollars in tech… he left a note.

"What does the note say?"

"Let me look at it again. Uh… it says 'Found: flying vulture guy. - Spider-man, ps - sorry about your plane.'"

Sorry about your… so Peter hadn't found the guy after he'd managed to run the plane into the ground; he'd been involved.

In a plane crash.

Without his suit.

Tony put a hand over the phone. "Friday, call Peter's cell phone."

"Calling... Sorry, Boss, it went to voicemail."

He turned back to his conversation. "Happy, oversee the cleanup. Peter isn't picking up his cell at the moment, so try calling to check in on him in a little while. I'm gonna do... something. Let me know when you hear from him."

Tony's legs suddenly decided standing was too hard, and he sat down hard on the floor.

"Friday, start combing through the data. I need to know what happened with the plane."

"Sorry, Boss, there's no data available. The transponder signal was hijacked and made to transmit false data indicating a safe flight. The real data will be in the onboard computer, provided it wasn't erased or destroyed."

Few things bothered Tony as much as not knowing things, and right now there was a hell of a lot he didn't know.

"Search the internet for recent Spider-Man sightings. Hit up social media sites, blogs, police reports, anything that mentions tonight."

"Searching."

Tony leaned back against a nearby workstation and closed his eyes. This was the worst feeling ever. Peter could be out there somewhere, hurt, and Tony had no idea how to find him. He hated being helpless.

By the time Happy finally called again, Tony had been able to piece together next to nothing of what had happened. There was a report of a disturbance at the high school involving a bus or two, and an unconfirmed report of Spider-Man stealing a car, but so far nothing was making any sense.

"Happy, you reach Peter?"

"His friend Ned answered his phone. He said Peter was fine, just asleep for the night."

Tony's breath whooshed out of him as he sagged in relief. "Good, that's good."

"But uh… the kid mentioned something about the vulture guy dropping a building on him. I couldn't get details because he hung up on me."

Tony didn't even know how to respond to that, so he didn't. He was starting to feel a pain at the base of his skull, though. He could only imagine the stress headache he was about to endure.

Happy continued, undeterred by Tony's lack of reply. "He said it was fine because they had ice - I'm not sure if that's real ice, or like a teenage code for something. But he said Peter was fine, so… I'm really sorry Tony. The kid really came through for me, I was wrong about him. He saved me a hell of a mess tonight."

At what cost, though? Tony couldn't even identify the myriad of emotions swirling in his gut. He'd figured Peter had some sort of advance healing, but he had no idea how good it was. Good enough to heal from being crushed under a building? Apparently… either that or he was bleeding internally somewhere next to his friend, quietly slipping into a coma…

"Talk to you later, Happy," he choked out right as the panic started to hit.

The shorter his breath got, the more angry he became. He couldn't afford to lose it right now, Peter might still be in trouble. He couldn't afford to imagine worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario; he needed to know for sure that Peter was okay.

"Boss, you need to slow your breathing."

"I know that, damn it!" He panted.

After a few minutes of struggling, he started to get control again only because he had more to do.

"Friday, look up Ned's address and send a drone."

It was wrong. It was so wrong and he hated it, but he couldn't stop himself. He'd briefly had Peter under surveillance when he'd been trying to protect him from the vigilante before he'd known it was Peter, but he'd moved the drone as soon as he'd found out. He couldn't stomach the invasiveness of it.

But not knowing if Peter was really okay was worse right now.

He had Friday guide the drone to Ned's home, where he assumed Peter was currently sleeping, given who'd answered his phone. He found a second-story window that looked straight into what had to be Ned's room. The window was closed, but Friday was able to get a visual, and do enough of a light scan to detect vitals.

Peter was resting on a bed, his friend on the floor, and both were lightly snoring. Peter, with bags of mostly melted ice on his chest, and his friend clutching a pillow. Friday couldn't get a blood pressure from outside the room, but she was able to get a read on his pulse and determine that it wasn't elevated in a way that would indicate heavy blood loss - internally or externally. So the kid wasn't bleeding to death, thankfully.

Tony gazed at the scene on his monitor for another couple minutes. He had to keep telling himself that Peter was okay, he was okay, he was really okay, even though his brain kept inserting thoughts of plane crashes and building collapses into his mantra.

"He's fine, Friday. He's fine, right?"

"It appears that way, Boss."

"Okay. Recall the drone before it gets creepy. Thanks, Friday."

Tony sighed. That was it. He was going to end this threat.

"Friday, pull up everything the FBI has on these guys. I want to make sure they caught everybody."

Because if any of those bastards were still out there, he was going to get the suit and take care of it himself. Now it was personal.

As an afterthought he added, "And track down the stolen car report. If it checks out, let's send a replacement car to the victim, same make and model. Include a note that says, 'Thank you for helping Spider-Man save the city.'

Wouldn't want the police hunting down Spider-Man for car theft.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Despite his efforts over the weekend, Tony was no closer to tracking down the remaining members of the arms dealers than he'd been Friday. In fact, there wasn't any hard evidence that there were more members… except that from what he'd learned about Mr. Toomes, he just didn't have the background or education to have created the tech he was using. It seemed pretty clear that he'd had someone behind the scenes making his gadgets and creating the weapons, but whoever it was had never been on anyone's radar.

He was on Tony's radar now, though; he wouldn't be able to hide for long.

In addition to doing a little good old fashioned crime solving, Tony had also done a fair amount of thinking. Clearly all his efforts to guide Peter from a distance had failed miserably. He decided it was time for an entirely new tact: he was going to invite him to become an official member of the Avengers.

Joining the Avengers one day had been Peter's obvious destination from the very start, but Tony had always imagined it would happen later. Now that it would be happening sooner though, he found himself imagining how life would change with Peter at the compound.

They'd have to get his Aunt's permission, of course. Though Tony couldn't imagine her saying no once she had a tour of the compound and realized everything they could do for Peter here.

He'd have a private tutor so he could finish his education, a safe place to train, a team to back him up should he get into something over his head… Tony figured it was an easy sell.

He'd also begun to imagine the other things he could teach Peter once they were living under the same roof. He was fifteen now… about time someone to taught him to drive.

He stopped short of letting himself see it as a father-son arrangement. It wouldn't be that. It couldn't be that. But that didn't stop him from imagining all the time they would spend together as mentor and mentee. All the things they could do together…

He'd finally have Peter around when he was working on updates for his suit. Maybe the kid would even want to help. He'd been able to manufacture his own web fluid; he was definitely smart enough to have some design input.

"Friday, call a press conference for early this evening. We'll have it here at the compound. Just tell them that I have an announcement to make, and that they aren't going to want to miss it."

He'd pull the newest Spider armor out of storage and show it to Peter once he arrived. He could wear it for the big announcement.

"I'll contact your usual press outlets, Boss."

"Great, and dial Happy for me."

Happy picked up on the second ring. "Hey, I'm just getting to the school."

"Fantastic. Listen, I don't want to give away the surprise early so make sure no one sees you. And I want to be the one to break the news to Peter and make the official invite, so just tell him I want to speak to him and get him up here."

When he'd realized it was time to bring Peter into the Avengers, Happy had been the first person he'd discussed it with. Unsurprisingly, he'd been all for it. Happy had gone from thinking of Peter as a minor annoyance to being his biggest fan. The kid had really proven himself in the last few days.

"You got it." Happy lowered his voice. "Entering the school now. Peter's supposed to be at a decathlon practice this afternoon, so I'll just get him out if it. I'll send you a message once we're en route."

"Thanks, Happy. You're an officer and a gentleman."

Happy snorted and hung up.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony had no idea why he was so nervous. He'd been to Peter's new room twice to make sure it was all set up and ready for his arrival. He'd even checked that the new suit was still in the display case where he'd put it earlier. If he weren't so occupied with trying to make sure this all went to plan, he might've stopped to wonder why he was acting like he was about to bring home a newborn baby.

"Friday, which of my cars would be most appropriate for driving lessons, do you think?"

"Statistically, most teenagers learn to drive in their caregiver's oldest, or least valuable car in case of accident."

"Huh. My Roadster is the oldest, but it's a classic. Should I buy something sensible? I will. I'll buy something sensible. Friday, purchase a sensible car for driving lessons with Peter."

"Make and model?"

"I don't know, surprise me."

"Got it, Boss."

-0-0-0-0-0-

When Peter arrived, Tony was still a bundle of nerves. Though as usual, he thought he did a pretty good job at hiding it.

Apart from a really unfortunate puppy analogy that went on way too long.

Thankfully, Peter didn't know him well enough to be able to tell the difference between his normal rambling, and his nervous rambling.

And when he finally issued the invitation, he was shocked almost beyond words when Peter's answer was "Thank you, Mr. Stark, but I'm good."

Despite how fast his brain tended to work, it took him a minute to parse what he was hearing. He was stammering before he could stop himself.

"You're good? How are you good?"

The kid seemed to hesitate. "Well I mean, I'd rather stay on the ground for a little while - friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Somebody's got to look out for the little guy, right?"

Those were his words being repeated back to him. He was the one who'd been urging Peter all along to stay close to the ground and to be a 'friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.'

But his brain was still having a little trouble making sense of what he was hearing, despite how clear the kid was being. This was the kid who'd been asking about the next mission literally since before they'd gotten back from Germany. This was the kid who'd been talking about becoming an Avenger non-stop practically since he'd first put on his new suit.

He had to check one last time. He asked again, just to be sure sure. He wanted to hear the answer in the clearest way possible.

"You're turning me down? You better think about this." He gestured to the suit, still in its case. "Look at that, look at me. Last chance: yes or no?"

"No."

Tony couldn't help it, his brain shut down. He completely disconnected what he was saying from anything he was feeling at the moment. All he could focus on was getting out of the situation was fast as possible.

"Okay. It's kind of a Springsteen-y, working-class hero vibe that I dig. Uh… Happy will take you home."

"Yeah?" He glanced behind him to where Happy was lurking.

"Yeah," the other man confirmed.

Then Happy turned to Peter. "Mind waiting in the car? I need a minute."

And no, there was not going to be another conversation right now. Tony was pretty much done conversing for the time being. He turned, tapping his watch to close the case on the new suit.

"Thank you, Mr. Stark."

Tony turned to see Peter, slowly making his way towards the exit. "Yes, Mr. Parker. Very well," he said, most of his conversational skills abandoning him.

"I'll see you around." Peter hesitated on his way out the door. "This was a test, right? There's nobody back there?"

And what else could he say? Tony gave the only answer he could. "Yes. You passed. Alright, skedaddle there, young buck."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah. Thank you," he answered mechanically, watching his son finally walk out the door.

"Told you he's a good kid."

All Tony could do was send Happy a helpless shrug because, yeah, Peter was a good kid. Too good to have been raised by a Stark. And even though he'd honestly been doing the very best he could for Peter since he'd found out about him, the truth was that he didn't deserve to have him. He never would.

There was a tidal wave of disappointment getting ready to crash over him, but Tony forced it down and bottled it up. There was a mess to clean up now. Pepper was asking what they'd done to make Peter leave and what she was supposed to tell the press, and he honestly had no answers.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Later that night when no one else was around to see, Tony went back to Peter's room one last time and sat heavily on the bed. Looking around the pristine room he couldn't help but imagine what it might've looked like with Peter's things strewn all over.

A backpack on the floor, clothes crumpled in the corner, books scattered across the desk… the room was well-furnished, but it seemed empty and lacking without those things.

Tony got up and wandered to his own room. It wasn't terribly far. Peter would've been close. Closer than he'd ever been. Close enough that if he'd had a question, or just wanted to share something he'd figured out, he could've walked over to Tony's room and knocked instead of texting Happy.

And Tony would've opened the door. And he would've let Peter in, no matter what time it was. And they would've had long discussions about stupid random things that were vitally important to young 15 year-old boys.

And he would've listened. He imagined he wouldn't have always had the answers Peter was looking for, but he would've been there. Always.

Yep. There was that wave of disappointment, coming back with a vengeance, threatening to crush him.

He sank down onto his own bed, head falling into his hands. He took one deep breath, and then another. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter. Peter didn't need him.

And by now Tony was used to things not working out the way he'd hoped.

It was fine.

Until Friday interrupted with news. "Boss, a message from the Honda dealership just came through. Your sensible new car will be delivered tomorrow at 10am."

Peter's car.

Tony intended to snort, but what came out was closer to a sob.

He viciously scrubbed the wetness off his face.

It didn't matter.


	11. Chapter 11

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 11**

Summary:

Tony returns the suit to Peter, and May finds out Peter's secret. She's less than thrilled.

* * *

It didn't take long to get a new parachute and tracker installed in Peter's suit. Having made the decision to give the suit back, he'd wanted those elements reinstalled.

Hopefully they'd last a little longer this time.

He was leaving the Training Wheels disabled, though, Peter had earned that much.

And since Peter was in the habit of leaving his bedroom window unlocked so he could sneak back in after patrolling, it was easy to deliver the suit without anyone being the wiser. He had one of his drones leave it on Peter's bed just before Peter was due to arrive home from school, that way it was more likely that Peter would find it before his aunt did.

Still, he'd set the suit in a plain box and wrapped it in paper, just in case May happened to get curious and look in the plain paper bag before Peter arrived.

Spending time working on Peter's suit had given him a chance to put things into perspective. Peter was in a good place living in Queens with his aunt. He had friends, he was involved in school - things Tony hadn't had at that age. It'd be wrong to take that away from him, even in exchange for joining the Avengers.

But now that Tony had come so close to Peter actually living in his home something deep inside him shifted. He couldn't stop thinking of ways he could spend more time with the kid.

So he'd come up with an alternative to Peter joining the Avengers.

He left a note with the suit offering Peter an actual internship - a legitimate one this time. With May's permission, he could come out to the compound a couple times a month and they could work on whatever projects sparked Peter's interest. He could still give some input on his suit… maybe he'd even want to take home a stark computer and use a little of his time between visits to come up with ideas. Then they could meet and work on them together.

Also, he was hoping a legitimate internship would give Peter a reason to keep in touch with Tony now instead of just Happy. Of course, Tony realized he was the one who'd set Happy up as Peter's contact to begin with… but things felt different now. He'd always followed Peter's activities pretty closely, but now he wanted something more… now he wanted an actual relationship with the kid. He wanted to get to know him as a person, instead of just a set of data.

So.

Once the suit was dropped safely in Peter's room, it was just a matter of waiting. The note had included his contact information - Tony's cell phone number this time instead of Happy's. All Peter had to do to get the ball rolling was call him up and tell him he was in.

Or shoot him a text. Tony wasn't picky at this point.

Still, he was trying not to let his hope get out of control this time around. The acute disappointment he'd had to bear when things hadn't worked out before was still too fresh and too painful for him to be eager to go down that road again. He was trying hard to have no expectations at all. It was quite possible that Peter wouldn't call. It was possible that he would decide that he just didn't have time in his schedule for a real internship. It was possible that he'd rather concentrate on the decathlon and on spending time with his friends.

All legitimate choices.

Of course all efforts not to get his hopes up went flying out the window the minute his phone rang and he saw Peter's number on the display.

"Peter! Guess you got my package."

"Oh my god, Mister Stark, you've gotta help me! I don't know what to do!"

And that wasn't at all what he'd been expecting. Peter sounded downright panicked. He couldn't be panicking over an internship, could he?

"What's going on?"

"It's May. Oh my god. May found out. I can't- I don't know what to do. I thought I was home alone and I put the suit on and she walked in and saw me. I don't - I don't know what to do." Peter's words were fast and almost breathless.

"Okay, slow down. She walked in on you in the suit. What did she say? Just take a couple deep breaths and tell me exactly what happened, okay?"

"She uh - She screamed 'what the fuck' and then she started crying. I was trying to explain, but she wouldn't let me. She locked herself in her room."

"Alright, that's okay, that's manageable. Sounds like she's maybe a little shocked-"

"A little?! Mr. Stark, I've never seen her like this. She doesn't blow up like this. Not ever."

"Well first thing's first, kid. Take off the suit if you haven't already. Put some normal clothes on, and don't go anywhere. You're going to have to wait her out. Once she's had a little while to process, she's probably going to come out of that room with a lot of questions."

"Right… right. She's gonna - oh man, I hope she doesn't - I can't tell her all the things I've been doing, it'll kill her! I don't know what I'm gonna say to her."

"You'll figure it out, I promise. She loves you, kid, she'll come around."

"But what if - what if she wants me to give up being Spider-Man? What if she _makes_ me?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? Don't start making assumptions."

"Mr. Stark… do you think you could come over? I mean… I know you're not in town anymore, but do you think you'd have time to maybe come by? Just to help me explain?"

And that was all it took for Tony to get moving. "I'm on my way, kid. Just sit tight, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark! Thank you, I - I don't know, I'm so scared right now."

Tony answered from inside his armor, the call having automatically transferred to his HUD when he put the suit on. "I know. It'll be okay. I'll be there soon."

He actually had no idea how May was going to react, or whether or not she'd be willing to hear them out, but one thing was sure - he was going because Peter had asked. Tony wasn't about to let him down.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony stepped out of the suit and onto the sidewalk just outside of the Parker's apartment. He couldn't hear any yelling from the street below - he figured that had to be a good sign.

He made his way upstairs and knocked on the door, his mind going back to the last time he'd been here when May had welcomed him in with date loaf and tea - he doubted he'd get a similar reception this time around.

May opened the door swiftly, deceptively calm, with a defiant look in her eye. "Mr. Stark. Peter said you were coming. Won't you come in?"

Tony was perceptive enough to hear the order in what was phrased as a question, and he stepped into the apartment. Over in the living room, he could see Peter sitting slumped over on the sofa, staring down at his knees.

May ushered him in and he opted to sit on one of the arm chairs next to the sofa. He didn't want to sit next to Peter and give May the impression that they were ganging up on her.

"So… rough night?"

May wasted no time. "How long have you known that my underaged nephew was spending his free time fighting dangerous criminals in the city instead of meeting up with his friends and doing normal, safe, teenaged things?"

Tony had to respect anyone who could cut right to the chase like that, and he knew the only way this was going to work out for any of them was if he was completely honest. Or at least as honest as he could be.

"Since not long after he started doing it." Tony saw Peter shoot him a surprised look.

"Explain," May commanded.

"I was living at the tower here in the city. I heard about a new vigilante running around Queens and I got curious. I put my exceptional computing power to the task of figuring out who was behind the mask. It took a few weeks, but I eventually discovered who it was."

"And then instead of telling his guardian, you what? You made him that suit? Peter said you're the one who's been helping him."

"I didn't know at first whether or not you were aware of his… activities. But I do know what it's like to be a kid determined to assert your independence, and I figured it was better to give him a suit with some safety features than try to put a stop to it and have him rebel and run off unprepared."

"So you just decided to make that call all on your own."

Tony winced sheepishly. "I'm sorry for not looping you in. I realize that that was a mistake on my part. As the adult, I should've made sure you were aware of what your nephew was doing so you could make informed decisions about his safety."

May sat back, looking a bit taken aback by Tony's willingness to admit his mistake.

"You said the suit had safety features… what safety features?"

"It has an onboard computer, similar to the one in the Iron Man suit. It has a GPS tracker so that he can be located at any given moment. It has various protocols installed so that when certain conditions are met, I am automatically notified."

"What do you mean? What conditions?"

"There are parameters set for things like his location, his altitude, his temperature - if any of those went out of their given ranges, I would be notified and could immediately assist if needed."

Tony prayed that she wouldn't ask if any of the protocols had been triggered. He really didn't want to tell her about the night her nephew almost drown chasing down arms dealers with alien technology; that was not a story that would convince her that Peter was safe as Spider-Man.

Instead though, May's mind went in an entirely different direction.

"How exactly did this happen? I've seen videos of Spider-Man doing things that regular people can't do. Does this mean… Peter was adopted by Richard and Mary Parker, I don't know if you knew that… but we only ever had information about his mother. Does this mean that Peter's biological father could've been a mutant or something?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Peter look up with interest. He didn't seem shocked, and from the way May had said it, it seemed that Peter had already known he was adopted.

So now was his chance. He could just confess right now that he not only knew for sure that Peter's birth father was not a mutant, but that he even knew who he was.

"Honestly, I have no idea how it happened. That's something I was never able to figure out." He didn't even comment on the identity of Peter's father - it wasn't the right time. It might never be the right time.

Tony watched as May turned expectantly toward Peter. "Well? How did you get these… powers?"

Tony listened as Peter stammered out a story about having been bitten by some kind of laboratory-engineered spider on a school trip. It should've sounded impossible, but with the things Peter could do… Tony felt like Peter could've claimed it was aliens and it would've been believable. The proof was in what the kid could do. Which apparently was May's next topic.

"What exactly are the abilities you got from this… spider?"

"Uh… I can cling to just about any surface, my hearing and eyesight are better, my speed, agility, and reaction times are better… uh… I'm stronger…"

"How much stronger?"

Peter half-shrugged. "I don't really know. I - I can lift a lot now. Like… a lot."

Tony rescued Peter before he could start talking about the specifics of any of the things he'd done. "We haven't run any formal tests, but Peter has been able to lift upwards of 20 tons without straining himself."

While he was sure May would be looking for Spider-Man videos online soon, now was not the time to talk about her nephew jumping out in front of speeding cars or catching jet bridges that had been dropped on him by super soldiers.

"Twenty TONS?! That's… that's more than a car!"

"It's more than several cars."

May sat quietly a minute, seemingly deep in thought. Tony took the opportunity to glance over at Peter. He was still slumped over, elbows on his knees, but he didn't look quite as dejected as before. Tony imagined it wasn't going nearly as badly as he'd expected.

Finally, May spoke up again. "I need to think about this. I'm not even sure… this is nothing I ever thought I'd have to deal with. There's no manual for this."

Tony figured it was time to make a gentle suggestion, just so May would have something to think about. And to prevent Peter from immediately asking for permission to continue doing what he'd been doing; he doubted May was ready for that just yet.

"Full disclosure - I recently invited Peter to take part in an internship with Stark Industries, working personally with me. He could come out to our new facilities upstate a couple times a month and we could make sure he knew how to handle his abilities. And probably get a better idea of exactly what he can do, while we were at it. You'd be welcome to come as well, if you wanted. We have training courses there where he could practice his abilities in a safe environment."

May's eyes narrowed. "Another internship?"

"Another?" Tony glanced at Peter in confusion. Oh no…

He'd heard from Happy that Peter had been telling his friends that he had a Stark internship to explain why he disappeared so much, but he had no idea he'd been telling his aunt about the fake internship. He wondered how often he'd used that excuse with her.

Peter grimaced. "I told her I was working on an internship with you whenever I was busy doing Spider-Man things." He looked at his aunt. "Sorry, May. I didn't know how to tell you."

"So instead, you just let me think that this man was working you half to death?!"

Tony jumped in before it could escalate. "Well, this would be like that. Only real this time, totally legitimate, and I wouldn't over-work him."

-0-0-0-0-0-

In the end, Tony thought the whole thing had gone rather well. By the time he'd left the Parker's apartment, everyone had been calm - at least outwardly. May had promised to consider allowing Peter to participate in an internship, and Peter had promised to lay off going out as Spider-Man until further notice.

Tony hoped May would come around to the idea of her nephew fighting crime, because he doubted Peter could stay out of the suit long. He had a feeling that despite his best intentions, the minute a bad situation presented itself, Peter wouldn't be able to resist swinging into action.

Oddly, that was one way in which they were alike. Tony had intended to quit the Iron Man thing before, and it hadn't stuck. Maybe failing despite the best of intentions was an inherited trait…


	12. Chapter 12

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 12**

Summary:

May makes a decision.

* * *

"Woo, yes! Take that, Laser Face!"

Sitting beside May in a viewing area a safe distance away, Tony watched as Peter webbed a flying drone, sticking it to the gym wall before continuing his swinging motion towards an elevated platform. He landed with a backflip, and then called out.

"May! Did you see that? I totally- whoa!" Peter leapt away as another drone shot at him.

"Yep, I saw it. Great job, Peter!" Then she addressed Tony without taking her eyes from where her nephew was working out in the new Avengers facility.

"I still can't believe the things he can do… the way he can move."

Tony nodded in agreement.

It hadn't taken long for May to agree to bring Peter out to the compound for a tour. She seemed like the kind of person who liked things settled; she didn't like indecision hanging over her head. And from the way things had been going so far, Tony was fairly sure that she was going to agree to let Peter keep the suit, even if she imposed some limitations.

"This is probably the most rousing game of laser tag you've ever seen." He smirked, watching Peter catch another drone before it could hit him with a beam of light.

"He's so fast… I mean… the drones can't even touch him. Is it… is this on a beginner's setting for him?"

"Ah, no. Actually, this is the standard setting the others train with. Most manage to avoid the drones because of their sheer experience. Or they analyze the tactical pattern the drones are using and adjust accordingly. Peter just seems to be aware of them as needed. It's almost as if he senses them coming."

"Is that- is that possible? Can he predict them?"

Tony shrugged, watching Peter hang upside down from the ceiling as he took aim at another drone. "I don't know. He's never trained here before - I don't have enough data to analyze. But he's avoiding them just fine on his first run through. Most of the others got tagged at least once their first times."

He'd long suspected that Peter had some form of limited precognition when it came to danger. His reaction times were lightning fast, and in some of the footage he'd seen, it almost seemed as if the kid was reacting to something as it happened rather than right after. Of course, he'd be learning a lot more about what Peter was capable of if May agreed to let him take the internship.

"What gets me is how much fun he seems to be having. I've never seen him like this. It's like he was born for it." May swiped a tear from her cheek. "He'd- he'd never be able to give this up, would he?"

Tony was tempted to shrug again because how was he supposed to know? He was sitting next to someone who'd known Peter upclose his whole life. Tony couldn't compete.

"I don't know," he answered instead.

He didn't know, but he sure as hell had a feeling. It was the same feeling he'd had when Iron Man had actually become a viable thing and not just a flying escape bucket he'd put together in a desert out of desperation. He'd flown halfway across the world and he'd utterly destroyed the terrorist camp that had held him hostage, liberating a village full of innocent people. He'd known then that he and Iron Man were one and the same.

He thought he saw the same understanding in Peter, especially after the he'd stopped Toomes. It hadn't mattered then to Peter that he was without the suit; he was Spider-Man, and he was going to stop something bad from happening no matter what. He'd said he was nothing without the suit, but he'd proved himself, and everyone else, wrong. Tony doubted the kid was ever going to stop now.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Later that day Peter was at one of Tony's work stations in the lab checking out holographic images of various Iron Man designs. Tony had let him look, but he'd made him promise to hold all his questions until the end. Partly so he and May could talk, and partly because he was fairly sure that if Peter had enough time to examine everything, he'd be able to answer most of his own questions.

They sat just outside the lab, a plate of banana bread between them - and because Tony hadn't been able to resist - tea.

"You know," May started, "it's funny. I never really paid much attention to Spider-Man stories before, but ever since I found out… it's like it's all I ever hear about."

"Well, you're in the neighborhood."

"Someone I work with told me her daughter was almost mugged, but Spider-Man stopped it. Swooped in and stuck her attacker to a building. I've also heard stories about Spider-Man stopping robberies and helping senior citizens carry their groceries. Apparently, he even jumped in front of a car before it could hit a bus. And it didn't hurt him. I saw that one on the internet."

"I saw that one, too. The impact didn't even phase him."

"He really is amazing."

"He is."

May turned from where she'd been staring vacantly in Peter's direction on the other side of the glass, and faced Tony fully. "There's something you need to understand."

"Okay…"

"This… event. The spider, the… infection. Whatever it was that changed him. It didn't really change him." She put her hands out in front of her, as if to ward off a potential argument. "I mean, it changed him physically, but this- this- running around helping people? This seeing a need and wanting to do something about it? That's who Peter's always been. Now he just…"

"Has the ability to do something about it," Tony finished quietly.

And that was one of the huge differences between him and Peter, Tony realized. Peter had grown up wanting to help people. For him, getting these powers had meant finally having the tools to do what he'd wanted to do all along.

Tony had grown up wanting to be better. He'd wanted to be the smartest, and invent the best computers, or weapons, or whatever he put his mind to. It didn't matter that there really wasn't much competition; he was always competing with himself. He was consumed by the desire to constantly improve upon whatever had come before.

Helping people hadn't even been in the picture. Not until he'd woken up to the fact that he was the one who'd been helping to hurt people all along.

The kid had grown up knowing what Tony had taken a lifetime to learn.

May looked back toward Peter. "I hate this. I hate the idea of him facing dangerous people - people who want to hurt him."

She held up a finger as if to stop Tony from answering.

"But I'm also so damn proud of him. I can hardly believe… he's been at this for _months_. Just helping people. No recognition, no praise, no payment… he's fifteen, for god's sake! He-" She swiped a tear off her cheek. "He's helped so many people. He's made a real difference in the neighborhood."

"You raised him right."

Peter burst from the lab door. "I think I get why the ankle repulsors are- May, what's wrong?"

Tony watched as May stood, blinking back tears before any more could fall. "I'm just really proud of you, Peter."

Peter accepted a hug from his aunt and then stepped back with a hopeful look on his face. "Does that mean…?"

"No."

Peter's face fell.

"You can't do what you were doing, not anymore. But…"

And just the way she trailed off must've been a signal to Peter, because he immediately perked up.

"But, I might be okay with you keeping the suit under certain conditions."

Peter was nodding before May even had the whole sentence out. "Yeah, of course."

May ticked off on her fingers. "First, no sneaking around. I want to know what's going on _all the time_. Second, no staying out late on a school night. Until you graduate, school is the priority. Third, nothing too dangerous. I mean it. No serious, big-time crime. No bad guys that blow up parts of the city. You leave that for someone else."

Peter was nodding so quickly that Tony had to wonder if he'd even heard the conditions, or if he was so eager to keep the suit that it didn't matter what he had to agree to.

"Uh, I think I can help with the first one. The suit has a tracker." Tony pinned Peter with a look that he hoped conveyed the fact that he expected Peter to leave the tracker in this time. "I can put a simple app on a tablet that would allow you to see where the suit - Peter - is at any time, as well as call him right on his display whether he has his phone with him or not."

-0-0-0-0-0-

And that's how the Parkers ended up returning home from their very first trip to the compound with brand new Stark gear.

He'd given May a tablet that would interface seamlessly with the suit. He'd given Peter a laptop so he could peruse the Spider suit schematics at his leisure, and eventually maybe have some input.

And May had agreed to let Peter come out to the compound twice a month.

The internship was officially on.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A couple of weeks later, Peter was back at the compound for the weekend. May had opted not to come, saying she was going to take the weekend off.

Tony suspected that having Peter report to her was a little more time consuming than she thought it'd be.

Peter arrived anxious to get moving so he spent Friday evening working out in the gym. He'd requested that Friday record his session so they could analyze it afterwards, so Peter spent part of Saturday watching the playback and asking about the ways the drone program could be altered.

"Mr. Stark? Do you think I could have access to the drone program files? Just so I could try a few things?"

"Yeah, sure. Make a copy before you make changes, though. Safe computing and all that."

Tony watched Peter nod vigorously. "Absolutely! I definitely won't overwrite anything, I promise."

Not that he was going to tell Peter, but it really didn't matter. Tony had his own backups in case Peter accidentally messed anything up, but it was a good habit for him to have.

The kid was surprisingly proficient with computers, despite having had nothing but some public school classes to learn from. Tony suspected he was a genius or pretty close to it, but per his parents wishes, he'd never been tested. From what he'd gathered, the Parkers had noticed Peter's intellect early on, but had wanted him to have as normal a childhood as possible.

Tony felt a twinge of guilt. 'Normal' had definitely gone out the window. Then again, he doubted the Parkers had ever imagined that Peter would gain super strength and agility and take up vigilantism all before he turned 16.

Dinners were a little awkward at first. Tony wasn't sure how far he could push this 'get to know each other' thing before Peter began to suspect that there was more to this than a simple internship. The kid wasn't stupid. Luckily, he was still so hyped about being at the compound that he didn't seem to think anything of the fact that so far it'd mostly just been the two of them, and Tony had done most of the cooking himself.

Not that he'd advertised it. Typically, Peter was off doing something in the lab while Tony threw something together in the kitchen. Despite popular belief, he actually did know how to cook. It was like kindergarden-level chemistry: you just had to understand how substances interacted with each other under certain conditions, and combine them to get the desired result. Easy.

Saturday night Peter was still every bit as enthusiastic about… everything. Tony was beginning to suspect it was the kid's default setting.

"So Mr. Stark, I was wondering… do I have full access to the Spider-Man suit files?"

Tony glanced up from his spaghetti, careful to keep his expression neutral because he knew that's all it would take to get Peter to start -

"Not that there's a problem with the suit, because there's no problem at all. It's perfect, really. I just wanted to look at some of the systems. Just, you know, study them? I don't want to change anything."

-over explaining himself. At a rapid pace.

Tony was tempted to caution Peter about bogging himself down with too many projects at the same time. He'd already been given access to the basic suit schematics and was already looking at the drone program Tony used in the gym, and the drone guidance system in general.

Of course, Tony liked to have several different projects open at once and bounce between them whenever the mood struck - he could understand that particular way of operating. Maybe Peter was the same way.

Directing his attention vaguely over Peter's shoulder, Tony said, "Friday, go ahead and give Peter access to the private server."

"Access granted."

Then before the kid could launch into a thousand-word expression of gratitude, he addressed Peter. "There's a lot of stuff in there - the Iron Man files, your suit files, the drone files… don't let yourself get sucked in. You have to concentrate on school or May will have both our hides."

"Absolutely, yeah. School is important." Peter was nodding for emphasis.

"And keep it to yourself, okay? I don't want to find out that the robotics club at your school suddenly has repulsor technology."

"Yeah, no, I'll keep it to myself! Of course. I don't even take the Stark computer to school."

"Alright then. Knock yourself out, kid."


	13. Chapter 13

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 13: INTERLUDE - Peter**

Summary:

Peter has a new internship with Tony Stark, and a brand new Stark laptop to play with. What could go wrong?

* * *

True to the promise he'd made both to his aunt, and to Mr. Stark, Peter limited his exploration of the Stark server to after his homework was done.

Even though he really really wanted to tell May he was sick and stay home all day combing through it all. Mr. Stark had a lot of cool stuff.

There was one encrypted section on the server that looked like it hadn't been accessed in a while, and though he was mildly curious as to what could be in there, Peter ignored it because everything he wanted to see was in the open section, just waiting to be explored.

He spent the first week looking at all the Spider suit files he'd never had access to before. There was way more than Ned had been able to find that day in the hotel. Peter was tempted to let Ned have a look, but he'd promised himself that he wouldn't show any of it to Ned.

Not that he thought Ned would tell anyone about it, at least not on purpose, but Mr. Stark had put a lot of trust in him by letting him have access to the server, and he didn't want to risk it.

Of course, that didn't stop him from talking about it, at least in general terms.

"I only got to see the BIOS. What's the rest? Schematics?"

"Yeah, there's a lot of schematics, but you didn't see even see all of the BIOS; you saw like… the outer shell of the firmware. There's so much more to it."

"You're killing me, man. Seriously."

"I know! I'm sorry. It's just… it's so amazing! I still can't believe Mr. Stark let me have access to it. I mean, I even have access to the files for _his_ suit! It's so complicated… I could probably study it for years and still not get it all."

"Speaking of Mr. Stark." Ned sat up from where he'd been lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling of Peter's room. "When May found out about you, and you said Mr. Stark came over to talk to her… how did he say he figured out your identity again?"

"Uh… I don't think he said. I don't remember. I think he just mentioned something about how he figured it out with his computer." Peter had been so nervous that night, the whole thing seemed kinda like a dream.

"Well don't you think maybe you should find out? I mean, if Mr. Stark was able to figure out you were Spider-Man, couldn't someone else?"

"Nah. He's a genius with a super computer. I don't think anyone else is on his level, man."

But once Ned brought it up, the thought wouldn't leave Peter's head. How _had_ Mr. Stark known he was Spider-Man? He had to find out for sure because if there was even a small chance that someone else could figure it out and come after May, he needed to know.

Crouching at the edge of the roof of the newly remodeled Queens Community Bank the next night, Peter decided to see if Karen had any insight.

"Hey Karen?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Do you know how Mr. Stark figured out I was Spider-Man? I'm a little worried that if he figured it out, someone else could too."

"I'm sorry, Peter, I wasn't active during that time period. I could connect to Friday for you and try to find out if you'd like."

"Yeah, do that. Just don't tell Mr. Stark. I don't want him to think I don't trust him or something."

"Okay, give me a few minutes to interface with Friday."

"Sure thing, Karen."

Then he spent the next ten minutes distracted by an attempted bank robbery. What was it with people always trying to rob this bank? Luckily, it was only one guy, and he didn't have any alien weapons; he was trying to pick the lock on the front door.

He dropped down from the roof, landing behind the would-be robber.

"Dude. You know they have cameras, right? And an alarm system?"

The guy immediately dropped his lockpick and tried to run.

Tried to. But then found himself webbed to the side of the building. Honestly, it was like there were only two types of criminals in Queens: super criminals, and idiots.

Peter sighed, opening a message to his aunt.

"Hey, May, it's me checking in again. I just foiled the lamest attempted bank robbery ever. Guy was trying to pick the lock on the front door. Why are all the bad guys so dumb lately? Not that I want them to be smarter. Dumb is good. We like dumb. So uh… yeah. Police are on the way to come get this guy. Everything's good. I'm gonna go check on Mr. Delmar's cat before I head back. That cat, by the way, is smarter than this bank robber. Just sayin'. Love you, May!"

Hearing sirens getting near, Peter offered the would-be bank robber one last piece of advice before slinging away. "Stay in school!"

The alley behind Mr. Delmar's shop was only barely out of sight from the bank, but he figured it was a good place to wait and make sure the bad guy actually got picked up. Unfortunately, the cat (and Mr. Delmar) had apparently gone home for the night.

"Peter, I've finished talking to Friday."

"Oh great! Perfect timing, Karen. So what did you find out?"

"You said that you didn't want Mr. Stark to find out you'd asked, so I had to set those parameters with Friday. Friday is not required to regularly report to Mr. Stark anything that you do that does not trigger any of the safety protocols, but she is not able to lie if he asks specific questions."

"So basically… as long as he doesn't ask if I asked about how he knew I was Spider-Man, she wouldn't tell him? That doesn't seem so bad."

"She also said that there are certain topics that have been designated off-limits by Mr. Stark, and his investigation of Spider-Man is one of them."

"Wait, what? I'm not allowed to know how he figured out my secret? That doesn't seem right."

Peter climbed up the wall of the Deli and perched on the roof, behind the air ducts. The police had arrived and he wanted to be out of the way just in case they decided to investigate the nearby alley.

Despite what some people might think of teens, Peter did not feel like he needed to know everything. Sure, he was curious about pretty much everything, but he understood that Mr. Stark had a whole lot of proprietary tech and intellectual property and even potential government secrets that Peter had no right to know.

But this was different. Peter needed to know what he was missing. Sure, Mr. Stark was an actual genius and it was possible that he'd figured out who Spider-Man was in a way that no normal person could… but he needed to be sure. If there was any chance at all that someone could figure out who he was in real life - especially the wrong someone - it would put everyone he knew in danger.

He couldn't take that chance.

As soon as the police left, he went home, checked in with May, and settled in to start to figure it out. He decided that he wasn't going to look at any more of the server files until he could get to the bottom of this - it had to be his priority now.

He shot a quick text to Ned, figuring that if he was already asleep, he'd just talk to him the next morning.

Instead, the phone rang right away.

"Got your text. What's up? Is it Spider-Man business?"

"Yeah, kinda. I've been thinking about what you said… about how Mr. Stark figured out my identity. You're right, I need to know how he did it. Just to be sure that I'm not doing something wrong."

"Okay. So are you going to ask Mr. Stark?"

"I can't. According to Karen, Mr. Stark has made that topic off-limits."

"Why would he do that? Wouldn't he want you to know how he'd figured it out so we could make sure no one else could?"

"Yeah, you'd think."

The line went quiet a minute. Then Ned piped up. "Hey! Oh my god, Peter! Liz's dad! He knows who you are, right? He could be telling everyone!"

"That's been handled, according to Mr. Stark. He said I didn't have to worry about him."

"Handled? What'd he do, threaten him or something?"

"I have no idea; he only told me that it was taken care of."

"Hmm… Honestly, Peter, I have no idea how someone would figure it out. I mean, you're such a dork. And Spider-Man is cool. I don't think people would believe it was you even if you told them yourself."

"Gee, thanks, man."

"I mean, you could probably show up to school in the suit and people would think it was just a costume, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it. Thanks."

"Even if you did a flip-"

"I get it, Ned!"

"Just saying. You're good, man."

-0-0-0-0-0-

After two days of wracking his brain, trying to come up with some way he'd slipped up, Saturday finally arrived. Peter told May he was going to work on a school project, and he shut himself in his room.

He'd been doing a lot of thinking, and he still hadn't come up with one good reason why Mr. Stark wouldn't want to share how he'd discovered his identity. It made no sense.

So, today was the day he found out - one way or another. His suit was in a bag, tucked away in the closet just in case, because Peter was about to do something that Mr. Stark probably wouldn't like and he couldn't risk Karen finding out and being required to tell him about it.

The Stark server he'd been given access to was big - too big to be on his Stark laptop, but he'd been given access to the server via his new Stark account. And since he had full access, he was able to download files as needed.

There was only one part of that server he hadn't looked at yet, and that was the encrypted section.

So that's what he downloaded.

It didn't even take long. It was a shockingly small amount of data compared to the rest of the server. Whatever it was, it was something that Mr. Stark wanted to keep under wraps.

He really wanted to feel bad about it, but the more he'd thought about it, the more his worry about what Mr. Stark might think had been overridden by his worry about what might happen if someone else found out who he was.

As soon as the download was complete, he disconnected from the server, and shut down his internet connection. That way, if accessing whatever was in those files triggered any alerts, his Stark computer wouldn't be able to send it out.

Then he grabbed a LAN cable and sent the files from his Stark laptop over to his beat up Dell. Just in case the Stark laptop had any protocols that would be triggered by breaking the encryption.

Which was what he was about to do.

The encryption was absurdly easy to break, considering it came from a Stark server. In fact, it was so easy that once it was decrypted, Peter was 90% sure it wouldn't be anything important.

Because important things had to carry a lot better encryption than this.

And sure enough, glancing through the file names left him extremely disappointed. The main folder was entitled "Playlist" and everything inside looked like folders containing various music genres.

So Mr. Stark kept his… favorite music?

Encrypted.

On his private server.

Was he afraid all of the current music streaming apps were going to suddenly die out or something?

Peter sat and stared at the screen for a few minutes, completely forgetting his original mission while trying to wrap his head around the fact he was interning for a genius who kept his favorite music encrypted.

He was about to close the folder and go with Plan B - which meant he'd have to call up Mr. Stark and beg him to explain how he'd figured out his secret. If nothing else, so he could quit worrying about it.

But then he thought - why not? He clicked on the folder called "Bluegrass" just because he was curious. Sure enough, inside were music files. He clicked one called "Rocky Top" and cringed as the sound of a fast banjo broke the silence in his room.

"No judgement, Mr. Stark, but that's awful," he muttered, wondering if all the music was that bad.

He backed out of that folder, and clicked on one called "Heavy Metal" just to erase the bluegrass tune from his mind. He clicked the file labeled "Peace Sells" because he knew that song - it was by Megadeath.

Except the song wouldn't play. Every time Peter tried to open the song, he got an error message saying that his audio player couldn't read the file. It didn't make sense.

Peter went back out to another folder, this time labeled "Country", and clicked on the file called "Friends in Low Places" - and again, the file wouldn't play.

After restarting his audio player a couple times, and double checking that his computer was okay, Peter started taking a closer look at the files. More investigation showed that most folders had some songs that played just fine, and some that seemed to be corrupted or something.

Or, Peter thought, mind racing, maybe they weren't music files. That was the only thing that made sense. And the more he thought about it, the more genius it seemed. If you really wanted to keep something secret, it made sense to take it and hide it somewhere that no one would think to look.

Somewhere that looked like a perfectly innocent collection of songs.

The simplest way to hide a different file among music files would be to just change the file extension so that the computer wouldn't be able to read it. But if Mr. Stark had done that, Peter would need to know what the original extension had been in order to change it back and make it readable again.

So going on a hunch, Peter opened the "Heavy Metal" folder again, and deleted every file that was real music. Then he changed all of the remaining files so that they had the same extension Mr. Stark used for his schematics. Peter figured that was a good place to start - it made sense that Mr. Stark might have some more sensitive schematics that he didn't want to share.

And it worked! With about a quarter of the files, anyway. It appeared that all of the schematics he could open in the Heavy Metal folder were regarding the Iron Man armor and specifically… how to take it out of commission.

Peter's heart started to pound, looking at the the files. He didn't understand everything he was seeing, but it was pretty clear that Mr. Stark had been collecting information on the best ways to take out Iron Man. No wonder he'd kept it hidden.

He moved to the Country Music folder and tried the same trick. Only one was a schematic, and it seemed to have to do with Hawkeye's bow and quiver.

Peter opened a few more files here and there and then sat back, stunned. It looked like Mr. Stark had files on all the Avengers.

Was there a Spider-Man file? Peter guessed not, since he wasn't actually an Avenger, but now he was too curious to stop.

He worked his way through the files systematically, deleting anything that was legitimate music, and uncovering anything that was an actual schematic. He was starting to get a sense of the way it was organized.

Iron Man information was in the Heavy Metal folder, files all named after various heavy metal songs. Info on Hawkeye was in Country, New Age seemed to have information on Thor… and so on.

Peter frowned when he came to a folder called "Lullabies" - there was no way that was all real music. A few of the files actually _were_ children's songs but the rest, predictably, wouldn't play. Unfortunately, the schematic extension didn't open any of the files, so none of them were schematics.

He sat back and thought a minute. He supposed he could go through his Stark laptop and try every file extension Mr. Stark used to see if any of them unlocked these files… but that would take forever.

If they weren't music files, and they weren't schematics… what else could they be? Photos? Text files? Video? He hadn't tried any other extensions yet in the other folders, but since the schematic extension didn't unlock them all, he knew Mr. Stark also had other file types in those folders… and if it was all information on taking out the Avengers, photos, videos, and text documents seemed likely… but the problem was those all opened with a lot of different extensions.

Peter opened back up the Stark laptop and looked through a couple of the files he'd downloaded earlier about the Spider-Suit. The text files were all saved under the proprietary extension Stark Industries used for its own word processor. If any of the files were in that format, his Dell wouldn't be able to read them anyway because he didn't have the Stark word processor on his personal computer.

Peter sighed, grabbing his LAN cable again. This was probably going to come back to bite him somehow, but he was in too deep to back out now.

He transferred just the decrypted Lullabies folder back over to the Stark computer and changed the file extensions to match the Stark world processor files. If any of them were Stark Word files, they'd open now.

Most of them DID open.

And none of them were about Spider-Man; they were about Peter Parker.

"What the hell…" Peter trailed off, not even comprehending what he was looking at. There was a document with embedded photos of him going all the way back to Kindergarten, each photo captioned with his age and grade level. There was a document with clippings from small, local papers and school bulletins. Every time he'd ever been mentioned in an article about a school science fair or field trip. There was a document on his birth mother - most of it was stuff he'd already known about her, but there were pictures of her he'd never seen.

It went on and on… there were even documents for each of the schools he'd attended, including mentions of books purchased and donated to his elementary school, and an anonymous lab upgrade for his middle school.

His brain that had previously screeched to a halt while he struggled to understand what he was seeing was suddenly going a million miles an hour, trying to come up with some reasonable explanation as to why Mr. Stark had apparently been tracking him since he was born.

The only thing that came to mind was that maybe his parents had known Mr. Stark? Maybe his dad had worked with him, and maybe once his parents had died Mr. Stark had somehow felt like he had to keep checking in with his friend's son?

That had to be it. Nothing else made sense.

Then Peter clicked on the last openable file labeled "Opening Number."

Inside was a DNA test. A paternity test, actually. The first page was a summary of the findings, and after that all the data that backed it up. But it made no sense… there were only two names on the test.

Anthony Stark and Peter Parker.

It was a paternity test for… him? And Mr. Stark? How?

Suddenly, Peter slammed the laptop closed. This whole thing had to have been some kind of screwy test. This was all staged so that if Peter somehow got into the encrypted section of the server, he'd spend all day figuring it out only to find that it'd all been a practical joke. It had to be. It wasn't real.

It couldn't be real.

"Peter, dinner's ready!"

He cleared his throat. "Not hungry!"

His bedroom door flew open.

"Nuh uh, Mister. You haven't come out of your room all day except to make a sandwich at lunch and go right back to - whatever you're doing."

May eyed the laptop still sitting in front of him even though he'd slammed it shut. "Have you been working on internship stuff all day?"

"No, I told you, I had a project. I've been using both computers." He pointed across the room to where his Dell sat on the bed, still open to the file list.

"Oh. Well you still need to eat, so come on."

Dinner was take-out from his favorite Chinese restaurant, but Peter couldn't even taste the food. He ate mechanically, looking down at his plate like it was some kind of surreal painting. It kinda felt like he'd fallen into an alternate universe where everything looked the same on the outside, but was completely different underneath the surface.

"Peter, what's with you tonight? Did something happen at school? Are you fighting with Ned or something?"

"I - what do you know about my birth father?" Peter wasn't even sure why he'd asked. It's not like they hadn't talked about it before.

May laid down her fork and grabbed his hand. "Peter, look at me. What's this about? Why are you suddenly worried about your birth father?"

Peter shrugged. He couldn't tell May the truth. "Just a genetics project I was working on"

"Oh Hon. We never knew anything about your birth father. We never lied to you about that, even when you were little. Your birth mother only said that he wasn't in the picture - we never got any more information than that."

Peter nodded glumly. "I know. It's just - I don't know."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm just grateful that your birth mom gave you to your parents. She was young and not ready to raise you, and she did the bravest thing she could by giving you over to a family who was ready to love and care for you."

"Yeah, I know." Peter swiped at his eyes.

After dinner May gave him a tight hug, making him promise to take a break on his project, before allowing him to go back to his room.

Once he got to his room he decided he needed to move. He grabbed his suit and yanked it on, climbing out the window while Karen sent May a message telling her he was going out for a quick patrol.

He needed to clear his head.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Two thwarted muggings later, and Peter's head wasn't any clearer. He parked himself up on top of a bridge and attempted to order his thoughts.

But his thoughts refused to be ordered. All he could think about was that stupid DNA test and what it could mean.

It didn't seem possible that Mr. Stark could be his father - not in a million years. And there was no way, if the man really was his father, that he would've asked him to come to Germany the very first time he'd met him. The first time meeting your birth father you were supposed to have the "hi, I'm your birth father" conversation - everyone knew that.

But Mr. Stark had never said anything about that. He'd never even acted like he cared much about Peter's life one way or another, except the part that had to do with Spider-Man.

"Ugh. Karen, send May a message and tell her I'm on my way home. I'm done for tonight."

"All right. Are you okay, Peter?"

"Yeah. Just a lot on my mind. Thanks, Karen."

"Anytime."

By the time he got back to his room, Peter decided that there were only two possibilities - he just had to figure out which one was true: either the DNA test was a fake, or it was real.

He changed out of his suit and sat back down in front of the Stark laptop.

If it was a fake, Peter could only imagine that it had been planted there on purpose so that if he ever broke the encryption, he'd find it and… what? What would even be the point of that? The only way it being a test or a prank made sense would be if it was the only thing in the encrypted section.

He'd break the encryption hoping to find something juicy, and then discover something kind of funny, but obviously fake like a DNA test showing he was the child of Tony Stark and Black Widow or something. But the encrypted section of the server - the 'playlist' - had contained what looked like a lot of serious stuff. Information that could be used to hurt the Avengers. Why would all of that be there if the whole thing was a test?

And then there was the other possibility: what if it was real? Could Mr. Stark be his birth father?

He opened the laptop and brought back up the file with the DNA test.

Peter had always known that he was adopted. His parents had told him the story about his mother - a young MIT graduate who'd found herself pregnant and had been completely unprepared to care for him, so had put him up for adoption. But she'd died before he could even start to consider going to look for her, and no one had ever known who his father was. Peter had always imagined it was some drunken frat boy who'd knocked his mother up and then disappeared.

Suddenly things started falling into place. Tony Stark, a billionaire and an MIT grad himself, had probably visited the school some weekend, big man on campus, and had had a one night stand with his mother. Obviously, Tony knew who he was, so he'd known about his son, but he hadn't claimed him. Why?

Maybe he'd enjoyed his playboy lifestyle too much to want to settle down with a kid, so he'd left Peter's mother alone. Maybe he'd even paid her off to keep quiet about who the real father was so he wouldn't have to deal with it.

But why had he been keeping track of him over the years? Why didn't he ever contact him?

Peter's breath caught as he realized that Tony had never contacted him until Spider-Man had become a thing. So for whatever reason, he hadn't been acceptable as a son, but once he'd gotten powers he'd been good enough to be an… intern? Was Tony only associating with him because he was a future Avenger? Was he putting up with Peter so that he could use Spider-Man? Peter's stomach roiled at the thought.

He slammed the laptop closed again and picked it up. He wanted to confront Stark. He was going to quit the internship, give the suit back, and go back to being Spider-Man in his own clothes. He'd miss Karen… and the suit had some really cool features, but there was no way he could continue to work with the man knowing that he was his father, and ultimately, didn't think Peter was good enough to claim as a son. Screw that.

Screw _him._

Peter had never _ever_ taken advantage of his strength to wreck things, but suddenly he just didn't care anymore. He folded the stark laptop in half as if it were a piece of paper. And when the crack of the laptop breaking in half didn't satisfy him, he broke each of the pieces in half and threw them in his trash bin.

Screw Stark and his fancy computer. And screw his suit and his internship and… whatever else.

Peter tossed himself onto his bed. He absolutely hated this. He was so angry - more angry than he could ever remember being. But he was also more sad than he'd been since Uncle Ben had died. Because why hadn't he been good enough? Why couldn't Stark at least have made himself known as his father, even if he didn't want parental rights?

Why couldn't Peter ever be good enough for anyone?

Even though it had nothing to do with the current situation, Peter couldn't help but hear the chant "Penis Parker" echoing through his head. The other kids at school thought he was a loser.

Apparently, so did his own father.

* * *

Notes:  
1\. I know the part with Peter working on the computer is a little long, but I wanted to show how smart Peter is. He knows his way around computers, and he did a pretty thorough job covering his tracks by stashing away Karen and disconnected the Stark computer from the internet. (And using his personal computer's decrypting software instead of trying to do that on the Stark laptop - I'm sure Tony would have a protocol against that.)

2\. The way Tony coded his files is a real-life way to hide files, but I don't recommend it unless you're 100% sure you'll never forget which are the "real" files, and what their real extensions are supposed to be.

3\. As has been the case throughout most of this story, because we're getting a limited perspective, we're tied to an unreliable narrator. There's evidence that Tony actually DOES care about Peter, but Peter can't see it right now. (There's even evidence in the files Peter was looking at, but he's not in the right frame of mind to recognize it.)

4\. This is the chapter I've been waiting for since before the story began. FUN FACT: I almost called this story "Lullabies" instead of "Congratulations, it's a Boy!" In the end, I figured it would be way way too long before that title made sense, so it would just be confusing. But know that my working title from the very beginning doing my outlines was "Lullabies" because of course it made sense to Tony to put all the info about his baby boy in a folder called Lullabies (since he was going with a musical theme). And some of the songs that were legit songs in that section were songs he'd liked as a kid and would've played for Peter if he'd had the chance while Peter was little.


	14. Chapter 14

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 14**

Summary:

Tony gets a visitor at the compound.

* * *

"Friday, give me infrared. This bastard has some kind of portal technology, but I don't think he's going far." The warehouse was full of crates and boxes, and the guy was using them to hide, somehow bouncing around the structure using some kind of advanced technology. But, as long as none of the crates contained anything warm, finding him with infrared wouldn't be difficult.

Except he'd asked for it a second too late, and a blast of energy hit him from behind and knocked him to the ground.

Tony groaned. Whatever it was packed a hell of a punch.

"The armor is weakened at the shoulder. Another hit like that could disable your entire left side."

"Ugh. It feels like my left shoulder is already disabled." It'd felt like his bones had knocked together inside his shoulder, and it was starting to throb from his shoulder, all the way down to his hand.

"Your shoulder didn't fully dislocate."

"Thanks, Friday. Glass half-full, right? Okay, lock onto his heat signature. I'm going to taze this bastard into next week."

Once the guy was down, Tony called Damage Control Himself. From the investigating he'd been doing, this was the guy who'd created the weapons that had helped Toomes take out his plane - and hurt Peter in the process. He was going to make sure that he was put into a dark hole somewhere for a long, long time.

"Boss, would you like me to notify Damage Control that you'll also need a medic to look at your shoulder?"

"Nope. I'm good. This is nothing a little ice and couple aspirin can't fix."

"Incoming call from Colonel Rhodes."

Tony winced, both at his continually throbbing shoulder, and at the timing of the call. He hadn't told Rhodey where he was going.

"Put him through."

"Tony, your intern is here looking for you. Are you coming back soon?"

"My intern? Peter?"

"Uh… yes. He says his name is Peter. He's here to give you something, apparently."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I wasn't expecting him until a little later in the month, but it's fine. I'm just taking care of something - I'll be back in a bit."

"Okay, where should he wait for you?"

"Wherever. He's been there before so he knows his way around. He usually goes to the gym first, so he can wait there if he wants."

"All right, I'll tell him."

The guy started coming around just as Tony ended the call.

Now that he was caught, he was trembling like a rabbit, not even bothering to pull at his restraints. Not that he had any chance of getting out of them.

"Please, it's not my fault! I didn't mean to do it! I was trying to create helpful things, not weapons!"

"Oh, I see. Helpful things. Like things that could spoof my plane's transponder signal so my security would think the plane was fine while you guys raided it for loot? That kind of helpful? Or helpful things like winged jet packs strong enough to take out cement support columns so you could knock a _building_ down on Queen's local vigilante? Is that the kind of helpful you mean?"

Because yeah, he'd done enough investigation of the collapsed warehouse to be able to put together what had happened. He'd lost a couple nights sleep after he'd finally pieced it together from police reports and Friday's own analysis.

Tony watched the guy squirm, sweating and writhing in his restraints as if he could somehow will himself to disappear.

"Please, I didn't-"

"Save it. I'm done with you." Tony had to walk away before he got violent. He didn't even want to look at the weasel anymore.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Rhodes called again while he was flying back. "So what's this internship about anyway? Is it painful?"

"Painful? What? He hangs out with me, how could that possibly be painful?"

"I don't know, Tony, you tell me. The kid has been looking like he's about to face a firing squad since he got here. I let him in the gym, and he's just sitting on a bench staring into space. He hasn't even moved."

"Okay, this has to be a case of mistaken identity then, because that doesn't sound like Peter. Are you sure that's his name? Did you get a last name?"

"Yeah, Parker. Peter Parker. He's thin, has brown hair, brown eyes… a Midtown High t-shirt…"

"No, that's definitely him."

"Well I don't know what kind of internship you're running, but this kid looks like he's gearing up for torture or something."

"Huh. Okay. I'll figure it out when I get there. Thanks."

Tony flew to the platform closest to his living quarters because he really needed to change and take that aspirin. His shoulder was reminding him how much he hated Chitauri-based technology.

The mirror told him that he had a nice bruise that had already spread across his shoulder blade and down to his elbow, so he put on a dark long-sleeved shirt so Rhodey wouldn't give him any shit. He'd told him that he wasn't going to go after the guys with the alien tech without backup, but this one had been personal.

Rhodey wouldn't understand.

Tony tucked his left hand into his pocket, because good lord, he didn't want to swing his arm, even by accident, and he headed for the gym. He entered from the west side, and sure enough, Peter was sitting on a bench near the far door, just staring off into space.

The kid didn't seem to notice Tony's approach until he called out.

"Hey, Pete. What's up?"

Peter looked startled for a second, but then he blinked and stood up, striding towards Tony with what looked like a trash bag in one hand.

"Just came by to give you this." He tossed the bag at Tony's feet.

Alarm bells started ringing in Tony's head. This wasn't normal Peter behavior. And when he picked up the bag and saw that it contained the Spider suit and… his Stark laptop in pieces? The alarm bells only got louder.

Something was really wrong here.

Of course, Tony didn't know much about teenagers, but he'd heard over and over how they could get emotional over things that adults might consider unimportant. He didn't want to panic prematurely, even though his heart had already started to pound.

Tony decided to tread carefully. Maybe something had happened at school, or maybe Peter had gotten into a fight with his aunt.

"Uh… wow. So that's what a laptop looks like in pieces. Thor accidentally smashed one once, but I've never actually seen one ripped apart. Impressive."

Suddenly Peter's fists were clenched, and his cheeks were turning red with anger.

"I'm done."

"With what, exactly?"

"The internship, the suit, your computer. All of it. Just wanted you to know that." And then Peter turned to leave and Tony started to feel himself giving in to the panic a little.

He called out to Peter's retreating form. "I totally respect your choices, but can you at least tell me why? This is a total 180 kid, and I'm a bit lost."

Peter whipped around again to face him. "Did you pay her off?"

Now Tony was confused. Who did Peter think he'd paid?

"Who, your aunt? What are you talking about?"

"My mother. Did you pay her to leave your name off my birth certificate?"

And that knocked the breath right out of his lungs. He felt dizzy suddenly.

"How did you -

"I guess you never wanted me to find out, huh? Wouldn't want anyone to know that 'Penis Parker the Joke' was actually the son of Tony Stark, right? Wouldn't want to damage your reputation or whatever."

"Wait a second-"

"Why? Why should I wait a second?" And now Peter was practically screaming. "I've waited fifteen years. You never even acknowledged my existence until I became Spider-Man. Well guess what? You can't have Spider-Man! You can't have Spider-Man because you never wanted ME!" Peter was panting as he stared Tony down, as if awaiting an answer.

And Tony didn't know how to address any of this. He didn't even know where to start. All he knew was that his heart was pounding, his head was spinning, and Peter was about to walk away forever because somehow he'd found out the one thing he'd never wanted him to know.

Tony must've hesitated too long because Peter made an inarticulate sound of disgust - almost like a strangled scream - and turned away, marching purposefully towards the door.

"Wait… Peter, wait." But he could barely get the words out, the way his heart seemed to have lodged itself in his throat.

Peter opened the door, but suddenly Rhodey was there on the other side, blocking Peter's exit. "Hey, man. I don't know what's going on, but maybe everyone should just calm down a minute okay?"

Peter looked straight forward, chest heaving. "Excuse me, I'm leaving."

Rhodey stood his ground - and if Tony's brain had actually been operating he would've warned Rhodey. He'd never told his friend that Peter was Spider-man - the kid could throw him across the room with one hand if he wanted to.

"No one's going anywhere until they're calm."

Tony recognized that voice; it'd been used on him before. It was Rhodey's all-business voice. He didn't bring it out often, but when he did, Tony knew there was no use arguing with him.

He wasn't sure if he was on the verge of a panic attack, or about to throw up - maybe both. But something told him he should probably do something because the gym floor was new and vomit was gross. Unfortunately, his feet felt rooted to the floor, and all his muscles had turned to jelly.

But then he was also disgusted with himself. He was the adult here. Peter was upset, yes. Peter might never forgive him, true. And maybe Tony didn't deserve forgiveness anyway, so that was fair. But Peter _did_ deserve answers and they were years late in coming, so it was about time for Tony to suck it up and get on with it.

Or so he told his wobbly legs, as he took a couple deep breaths and made his way over to the door to stand behind Peter.

He cleared his throat to make sure his voice would work. "Hey, Rhodey. We're just… yeah. Peter, let's go to my lab. There's something I want to show you."

And the instant he said it, Tony was almost completely sure that the next words out of Peter's mouth would be something about how Tony didn't have anything Peter was interested in seeing. And Tony wasn't sure he'd have an answer for that because the kid would be right - there was nothing, nothing Tony could do to make this better.

But instead of answering the way Tony expected, Peter didn't say anything.

Tony spoke to the back of Peter's head, since he seemed to be locked in some kind of staring contest now with Rhodey.

"Look, I've made a lot of mistakes. I'm not gonna try to hide that or make excuses. Let me just give you some of the information you were looking for, okay? Then you can go if you want."

Peter's shoulders slumped suddenly, and he looked at the floor. "Fine, whatever."

Tony nodded to Rhodey, and he moved out of the way, letting them pass through the door. Before they turned the corner, Rhodey called out "Hollar if you need me."

And he knew that meant that Rhodey would wait outside the lab - not listening to their conversation, but hanging out nearby. And while he appreciated the thought, if Peter wanted to smash him into a pulp, Tony wasn't going to stop him.

In the lab, Tony grabbed a chair and rolled it up next to another that was seated at a large console. He sat in one, and gestured to the other for Peter.

The kid eased into the chair with an air of reluctance that said that he probably wouldn't stay long.

"Friday, bring up Sandra's email."

The email appeared on the screen in front of them.

"You were 9 when I found out you existed. Your mother only told me because she was dying and wanted me to know what she'd done. At the time, I was suffering from Palladium poisoning and I was pretty sure I was going to die soon too. I looked you up and saw that you'd been with the Parkers your whole life, and it just didn't make sense for me to bother them - especially since I figured I had only about another few weeks to live."

Tony risked a glance at Peter, but he was silent, staring at the screen with a blank face. He figured if there was anything the kid would really want to know, it was more about his mother.

And Tony was the only one left who really knew the story.

"I didn't remember Sandra at first - not when I got the email. But I looked her up afterwards and it all came back. She was 25. She'd just graduated from MIT with her Masters in Mechanical Engineering, and she already had a doctorate program all lined up. I was visiting MIT to speak at the graduation. I'd just turned 30 the week before, and I was in a celebrating mood.

"The girls at MIT were easy to impress - most of them were interested in the kinds of things I excelled at. I could dazzle them with a little science talk and they'd be all over me.

"Not your mother, though. When I was making the rounds after my speech, she walked right up to me and called me out on my bullshit. She… god, I honestly don't even remember what she said, but she was strangely kind about it, you know? There she was, criticizing my speech and accusing me of being under-prepared, and she said it in a way that made me feel like she actually gave a shit - not just about the science, but about me. I just… I don't know. She had this really weird way of being brutally honest, but incredibly gentle at the same time. I forgot about trying to impress the other girls and spent the rest of the night talking to her."

Peter's voice was raw, and almost without inflection. "And then you left."

Tony nodded. "I left at the end of the weekend, yes."

"Why?"

He ran a hand down his face. "Because I was a dumbass. Because I was young. Because I had no idea what a real relationship was supposed to look like. Because she was going right back to school and was going to be busy with her doctorate, and I was busy doing my own thing running my father's company and inventing weapons of mass destruction."

"If she'd told you… when she first found out…"

"I would've come back in a heartbeat." Tony said it without hesitation because it was the absolute truth.

"Don't get me wrong, I would've been the world's shittiest father - I had no idea how to do that, either, but I would've tried." Tony hesitated. "I actually think that's why she didn't tell me. I think she knew that I'd come back, and that it'd be a wreck. She had a way of being able to see right into you - I think she understood that a kid would need better than what I could give."

Peter was silent again, so Tony waited. There was a lot he wanted to explain, but he wanted Peter to be in the driver's seat the rest of the conversation.

Finally, he asked the next logical question.

"After the Palladium poisoning - when you didn't die - why didn't you come find me then?"

Tony sighed. "I thought about it. But then I remembered that a crazy Russian had just built his own backyard iron suit to come fight me so he could prove to the world that Iron Man wasn't invincible. And… " Tony shrugged, "it just never ended. There was always another mission, another threat, another danger… it didn't seem fair to bring you into that. Plus, the Parkers loved you, and you loved them. I wasn't anyone."

Peter's voice was almost too soft to hear. "But you could've been."

And there was nothing Tony could say to that because he was right; he could've been someone to Peter. He could've tried. He could've contacted the Parkers and asked them to allow him a visit. Even if they didn't want to tell Peter who he was, he could've been a part of his life even back then.

But he chose not to do that.

Probably, since Tony was being brutally honest, because it would've been too hard for him to be that close, but always be an outsider looking in. He'd chosen what had been easier for him, not necessarily what Peter would've wanted.

They were both silent for a while. Tony stared at the screen without really seeing it. He had a terrible feeling that this was it. This was where Peter decided whether or not Tony was worth sticking around for. Whether or not he could forgive him. Whether or not he even wanted to try.

Peter stood up slowly. "I've gotta go. I told May I was just going to drop something off and come right back."

Tony closed his eyes and willed his voice not to shake. "Okay. Let Friday get a car for you. Friday?"

"A staff member will be waiting out front with a car."

It looked like Peter was going to leave without saying anything else, so Tony got up carefully, and stepped over to the bag containing the spider suit and what was left of the laptop. He pulled the suit out and offered it to Peter.

"Please keep it. I only made it to keep you safe."

Peter looked down at the suit being held out to him with the same blankness he'd had the entire time they'd been talking. He reached out and took it, tucking it under his arm.

Then he turned and left the lab without another word.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Rhodey came in some time later - whether it was ten minutes or an hour, Tony had no idea - and found Tony sitting on the floor, the crumpled computer pieces in his hands.

He didn't ask any questions, but the email was still up on the screen. Tony watched him go over and read it.

He waited for his best friend's reaction - which he assumed would be disappointment. Surprise. Maybe anger.

Instead, Tony closed his eyes again at the sound of his own name being spoken with nothing but pity.

"Oh, Tony."


	15. Chapter 15

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 15**

Summary:

Tony goes on a mission and gets a visitor to the compound.

* * *

"Incoming call from Secretary Ross."

"Send it to voicemail."

It was the third time Ross had called in the past two days. Normally, Tony would answer out of sheer curiosity, if for no other reason, but he found himself feeling completely indifferent.

He'd been indifferent about a lot of things in the last couple days.

"He's left a voicemail, Boss. Would you like me to play it back for you?"

"No."

"If you keep ignoring him, he will likely resort to other means."

"Let him."

After all, what was Ross going to do? There wasn't anything left that he could do to hurt him. Not anymore.

Distantly, Tony could recognize that he was being a little dramatic, but he couldn't help it. Everything he'd hoped for had turned out exactly wrong. Every time he thought things would finally level out, something would blow up in his face again.

A few minutes later his cell phone started ringing - a phone Ross didn't have the number to. Tony glanced at the screen and considered not answering…

"Hey, Rhodes."

… but if he didn't answer Rhodey would likely just come drag him out of his lab. Too risky to ignore him

"Tony, you've got to stop ignoring Ross."

"Oh, are you calling in your official capacity as my babysitter? Because I thought you were gonna tell them to shove it."

"It's not like that, Tony, and you know it. Look, I know things are tough for you right now, but we signed the Accords. That means we have to move when they tell us to move."

"So this is something official? What is it?"

"There's been some activity in South America that they want investigated. Ross has everyone worried that Captain America is raising an army down there."

"Damn it, I was joking when I mentioned him backpacking through the Amazon." Tony sighed. "This is stupid. They assigning you to this mission too?"

"No, just you. Apparently they want to keep it covert."

"When the hell have I ever been covert?"

"That's what I said."

Tony sighed. "This is just Ross punishing me for not giving up Spider-Man's identity."

Once Rhodey had found out Peter was his son, Tony figured there was no sense holding back the rest of the story. He'd told him about the email from Sandra, and how he'd been looking after Peter from a distance all this time. At least now his friend understood why he absolutely could not let anyone find out Spider-Man's identity.

"Maybe, maybe not. You've got to check it out either way. That's the agreement."

The Accords would never work as intended as long as Ross was in a position to influence the decision-making process. He'd go to South America this time, but next on his agenda when he got back would be finding a way to remove Ross from the equation.

"Fine, damn it. Keep an eye on Peter for me."

"You know I will."

And that, as Tony had discovered years before, was the best thing about Rhodey. Even when Tony made colossal mistakes and managed to wreck everything, he could always count on Rhodey to be there to help him pick up the pieces.

Or in this case, just live in the rubble.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Three long, fruitless days later, he was returning - empty handed, because of course Steve wasn't raising an army in South America - when Rhodey called.

"If Ross has another mission for me you can tell him to shove it up his-"

Rhodey interrupted what would've been a colorful description of the good secretary's backside. "Nope. No mission. Just checking in."

"I'm about two hours out. I should get there just in time to eat and fall into bed for a week."

Which he was really looking forward to. He'd wanted to wrap the South America thing up as quickly as possible, so he'd missed quite a few meals, and hadn't really slept much. Though if he were honest with himself, he'd probably have to admit that part of it was his lingering distress over what had happened with Peter before he'd left.

He'd had a lot of time to reflect on the trip over, and he'd realized what a complete idiot he'd been. He'd completely forgotten about the encrypted files when he'd given Peter full access to the server. The kid was obviously smart enough to break the encryption and figure out his coding system… it'd just been a matter of time before this all blew up in his face.

He'd also been thinking over what Peter had said during their confrontation. Under different circumstances, it almost would've been funny that someone would accuse him of keeping a secret to protect his own reputation. He could almost hear Pepper's sardonic voice in his head saying "Pfft. What reputation?"

But the reality was that it wasn't funny at all. Peter had referred to himself as "Penis Parker", implying that others were calling him that as well. The fact that kids would say things like that to Peter pissed him off in a way that the various uncharitable comments about his own name hadn't done in decades. But the fact that Peter seemed to be genuinely affected by those little assholes, to the point where he'd doubt his worth to be recognized as a son - it left a sour feeling in Tony's stomach that hadn't left him.

It had also led him to re-examine the conversation from Peter's point-of-view. Had he said enough to reassure Peter that Tony was truly at fault? Had Peter really understood that Tony would've proudly claimed him as his son if he'd thought it was safe, and of any benefit to Peter?

He wasn't sure that Peter had understood any of that - and that haunted Tony.

"Yo, Tony, are you still there?"

"Oh, Rhodey. Yeah, sorry. We might have a bad connection - you cut out for a second there."

"I was just telling you that I'm going to be gone for a bit. I'm headed to Fort Bragg today."

"Great, see ya, buddy."

But actually, not so great. Rhodey was currently the only other person in Tony's life who knew his secret, and he'd hoped to be able to dump some of the things he'd been thinking about on his friend to see what he made of it all.

Oh well. It looked like his evening was going to go just the way he'd told Rhodey in the first place: he'd just eat and go to bed.

Maybe he'd even sleep.

-0-0-0-0-0-

When Tony got back the sun was only just starting to set. He stripped out of his armor, and made his way towards his shower, grateful for the chance to finally wash off some of the grime. He was just adjusting the water, when Friday alerted him to a visitor.

"Boss, May Parker is requesting entrance."

That could only mean one thing: Peter must've told his aunt what he'd found out. The idea sent ice up his spine, despite the fact that the bathroom was starting to get steamy from the hot water.

"Uh. Direct her to the main kitchen for me. I'll be right there."

His nice, relaxing shower was about to become a short, practical one. He'd take just enough time to wash off and then he'd head out to face the music.

Tony wasn't entirely sure what to make of the fact that May had showed up on his doorstep, but the timing was suspicious. The only thing that made sense was that she'd probably either come by, or contacted the compound earlier, and Rhodey had told her that he was away, and when to expect him back.

Which probably meant that she'd had plenty of time to think of all the things she wanted to say to him.

Nothing, Tony knew with absolute certainty, that he didn't deserve.

Her letting Peter go out as Spider-Man with adult supervision, and realizing that he was actually related to someone who regularly pissed off a lot of bad people, were two very different things. Tony was sure she'd be angry. And probably afraid. And honestly, he half-expected May to tell him that she wanted him to move back to California and tell Peter that the paternity test had been a fake.

He knew that she'd do anything to keep Peter safe, and the fact was, Tony wasn't safe. Never had been.

And of course there was the little fact that the kid hated him now. Tony supposed it was the circle of life or something. He'd hated his father, and now his son hated him. It was the sad Stark family legacy.

-0-0-0-0-0-

May was seated on one of the bar stools at the center kitchen island when he walked in.

"Hey." He glanced at May before going directly to the fridge to look for something for dinner. He doubted he'd be able to eat - at least not right now with whatever May was about to say to him hanging over his head - but he had to do something with his hands.

"Can I get you anything? I've been away a few days, so I'm not entirely sure what's here…"

"I'm fine. Colonel Rhodes said you were on a mission?"

So he'd been right; Rhodey had probably even told her when to expect him back. He grabbed a bowl of what looked like curry from the fridge and turned around. "More like an errand, really. Nothing exciting."

"I don't want to beat around the bush, so I'll just say it. Peter told me what happened."

Tony nodded, setting the dish aside. "I figured that's why you were here."

May was silent a moment. So Tony turned briefly to search the drawers for utensils. He opted to wait before serving himself. Depending on how this went, he might very well lose his appetite.

Finally, May spoke again. It sounded like she was weighing her words carefully. "Peter told me what you told him - about why you never claimed him. I'd like to hear it from you. I'm not a child, so no need to filter it."

Tony sighed and leaned back against the sink across from May. "What I said to Peter was the truth, no filter. I didn't know he existed. And when I found out, I was too big a mess and Peter already had stable loving parents. He didn't need me."

"And when his parents died?"

"Same story. I've never not been a mess. And he still had stable, loving people in his life who were ready to care for him. He didn't even know me."

"And when Ben died? Did you still think he was better off?"

"Absolutely. I've never doubted that you were the better parent between the two of us."

May stared at him as if she were trying to figure something out. Finally she said, "This isn't bullshit to you. You actually believe it."

"Of course I believe it. It's the truth."

May waved her hand as if to dismiss his answer. "What made you decide to contact him finally? Is your life suddenly more stable now?"

"I didn't originally intend to contact him at all. I was trying to find out who Spider-Man was so I could get him out of Queens. I didn't think it was safe to have a vigilante that close to Peter. But once I found out it was actually him…" Tony raised his hands in a helpless gesture "... I realized he'd been doing this all on his own. No help, no protection. I didn't think I could stop him, but I hoped I could at least…"

"Protect him, " she finished for him.

Tony could only nod.

May regarded him seriously, with unshed tears shimmering in her eyes. "When I found out who you really were, I wanted to come right over here and rip your head off. Not for any other reason than because you hurt Peter. I didn't care what your reasoning was, or what your rationale might've been… you took a kid like Peter, who is incredibly easy to love, and you abandoned him."

Tony returned May's stare, but didn't offer an excuses. He'd already decided on his way down to the kitchen that he'd take whatever she threw at him.

Because he deserved it.

May looked away, eyes darting around the kitchen. "So I drove over here to tell you off. I took the day off work and just came. The whole drive here I imagined how hard I'd slap you. I hoped that somehow, if I hit you hard enough, it would balance out the memory of the look on my nephew's face as he told me that you hadn't wanted him - at least not until he'd had these powers."

May grabbed a napkin from the kitchen island in front of her and started twisting it in her hands as she spoke. "But Colonel Rhodes was here, and you weren't. He said you were on a mission. He couldn't say where you were, or what you were doing, only that you'd be back today. But the way he was looking at me… I asked him if he knew, and he just nodded. And I couldn't help it… I'd already come all that way, and I was so angry… I told him that you were the most selfish person I'd ever met. I said that he should be ashamed to call himself your friend."

Tony bobbed his head in agreement, because what else could he do? He'd thought the same things himself.

"He wasn't even angry. I couldn't get a rise out of him, no matter what I said about you. He just stood there and let me vent. And when I was finished, he said he was sorry for the pain this situation had caused Peter and I. Then as I turned to leave, he told me that you were one of the least selfish people he knew, and that he was proud to call you a friend."

Tony looked down, studying his socked feet. He couldn't help but wonder why Rhodey hadn't mentioned any of this to him when he'd called.

"So I went home, and I did a lot of thinking. I tried to look past how it felt, and really tried to understand.

"And some things started to stand out in my mind… A lot of nice things have happened over the years. Random lucky things that I have to wonder about now. Peter's schools always seemed to get big anonymous donations the years that he started attending. Suddenly there was money for field trips and books that there hadn't been before. Midtown High got a bunch of equipment donated to their robotics club and their band got money for new instruments when Peter was a Freshman."

Tony could only shrug, still staring at his feet. He didn't know whether or not May was waiting for him to give her some sort of explanation for the things he'd done, but it didn't seem like she needed confirmation.

"My husband didn't have any Navy buddies. At least none that were still alive and would've sent me money anonymously for his funeral."

May paused, leaving that statement hanging in the air.

"I just wanted you guys to be okay. I wanted Peter to be okay," he admitted quietly, still staring at his socks that were now looking a little wobbly through the moisture slowly filling his eyes. He felt exposed. Like all of his secrets were being dragged out into the light. Thankfully, May couldn't know about everything he'd done for the Parkers over the years, but what she did know was enough. Tony had spent most of his life being loud and obnoxious about the things he didn't mind people seeing so they wouldn't think to look for everything he wanted to keep hidden.

And now May was cracking him open, leaving him feeling raw and vulnerable.

May stood suddenly, and Tony looked up in alarm.

"We don't need your money."

And before Tony could completely register the sucker punch of that statement, she continued.

"But Peter needs his father."

Tony sucked in ragged breath. "I don't know how to do that… and Peter doesn't want me."

May walked around the kitchen island to stand right in front of him. "First, you need to stop the self-recriminations right now. You think I knew how to be a mother when Peter's parents died? You think Richard and Mary had any idea what they were doing at first? No one knows how to be a parent when they start out. You learn as you go. And you get better. That's the way it works."

"And second, yes, Peter is angry. He has a right to be. You've kept yourself from him for years when you could've been there for him. You might think you had good reasons, but none of those reasons matter to Peter. What matters is - what are you going to do now? Are you willing to prove to him that you really care? Because no matter what Peter said or didn't say to you when he was here last, the ball is in your court. If you want Peter in your life, you have to reach out to him. And if he rejects you, you reach out again. And again, and again, and again. Until you either die, or he finally accepts you. Because that's what it means to be a parent. You can't give up on him."

Tony rocked a half step back and crossed his arms in front of him in an attempt to get back some feeling of control. He was exhausted from the mission, hungry, but queasy at the same time, and as much as it almost seemed like maybe May wasn't going to go through with ripping his head off like she'd planned, he didn't dare let himself hope for a positive outcome.

May - whether out of some extraordinary sense of compassion, or just because she was a much better person than he'd ever be - stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking at him with eyes that were much softer than the ones she'd started with.

"I know you've been trying to do right by him all this time. I can see that now. But now that he knows, you can't back off - even if that's what he says he wants. He's convinced himself that you never cared - you've got to prove him wrong."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Once May left, Tony had a quick dinner and then retired to his room. Despite his exhaustion, he laid in bed thinking, unable to sleep.

Tentatively, very, very tentatively, he let himself entertain a sliver of hope that maybe he could patch things up with Peter. He didn't think for a minute that May was on his side - she was, and always would be on Peter's side. That was as it should be.

But for reasons Tony couldn't begin to imagine, she'd apparently decided that Tony being in Peter's life maybe wasn't the worst thing.

Now he just needed to figure out what to do about it.

* * *

Notes:

On characterization: these characters are beginning to change a bit from how you know them in the MCU - hopefully not so much that they're not still recognizable, but some change is inevitable because they're going through things they haven't in canon.


	16. Chapter 16

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 16**

Summary:

Tony goes to speak with Peter, but it doesn't go as he'd hoped.

* * *

Tony arranged with May to visit Peter a couple of days later. She assured him that while Peter would be home for the night, she would be out late helping a friend so they'd be able to talk in private.

Even though it felt like an eternity since Peter had tossed the suit and broken laptop at his feet, it had only been a week now. Tony hoped that it'd been enough time for Peter to calm down and be able to talk about it, but not so much time that he'd feel like Tony wasn't serious about reaching out.

Unfortunately, it seemed that May hadn't been aware of the fact that Ned, who'd had plans previously that prevented him from coming over, had since been able to change his plans to hang out with Peter.

So it was Ned who opened the door to Tony's knock, much to both their surprise.

Ned stood for a few seconds, mouth agape, before calling out. "Peter! Tony Stark is at your door!"

"Hi there, you must be Ned." Tony extended his hand towards Ned as if he were closing a business deal and not standing nervously in the Parker's doorway.

Ned reached for his hand and shook it slowly in awe. "You're Tony Stark."

"Yes. Is Peter-"

Before he could finish, Peter came barreling out from wherever he'd been in the apartment, looking panicked.

"Are you here to ask him to come back to the internship?" Ned wanted to know. "I told him he was crazy to quit, but I didn't think you'd come in person. Wow."

"Can I come in?"

Tony directed the question at Peter, but it was Ned who answered.

"Oh my god, of course! I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. Yeah, come in! Do you want some pizza? Or a drink? We have some chips too…"

Tony stepped inside, eyes on Peter, who still hadn't said anything.

"Peter! Dude, is this normal? Like, is this a thing that happens? Have you been having Mr. Stark come over and never told me?"

Peter cleared his throat. "No, it's not normal."

Tony entered the living room behind Ned, who was still rattling off snacks they could offer him, while pausing every few seconds to shoot panicked looks at Peter, as if to say 'what do we do with this guy?'

Tony sat on one of the armchairs and addressed the boys. "Gentlemen. I'm sorry to interrupt your evening. Peter, Ned is right; I did want to come by and discuss the internship with you."

Tony looked at Peter, trying to convey the real message with his eyes. It seemed as if Peter had told his friend about the real internship, and that he'd now quit, but if he hadn't told his friend about what was going on between them, Tony wasn't going to be the one to spill the beans.

Finally, Peter spoke. "Mr. Stark, I'm not sure that's such a good idea. We're kinda in the middle of something right now…"

Ned's head whipped around to Peter. "What?"

Peter continued before Ned could argue. "We can talk about the internship some other time."

Clearly, Peter was shutting this down before it could even start. Whether that was because he really didn't want to talk, or just because his friend was present, Tony didn't know. Either way, he couldn't think of any subtle way to say what he wanted to say to Peter without Ned realizing what was going on, so he had no choice but to play along.

Tony put on his best business face. "I understand completely. Let's get something on the calendar then, shall we? With both of our schedules being what they are, I don't want this to slip through the cracks. When is a good time for you?"

Tony made a show of getting out his phone and opening up his calendar.

"Oh uh… I mean… homework is crazy right now so…"

Ned was looking back and forth between them as if it were a tennis match.

Tony just continued to look impassively at Peter, finger poised above his phone as if ready to enter an appointment into his calendar.

"I guess Friday could work. After school."

"Great, I'm open then. What time should I come by?"

Peter paused. "Uh, actually, can we meet at the compound? I can come over right after school."

"Absolutely. I'll send a car. Thanks for your time." He nodded at the boys and stood to leave.

He wasn't sure what to make of Peter offering to come to the compound. He would've thought that he'd be more comfortable meeting on his home turf, but then again, maybe he thought the compound was easier because he could just walk out if he didn't like the way things were going.

Tony kept considering the possibilities as he made his way to the door and out into the hall. He only vaguely registered Ned's voice once he was out in the hall exclaiming, "Wait, Tony Stark knew my name! Peter! Tony Stark knows who I am!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony spent the rest of the week trying - and failing - not to overthink every aspect of Peter's upcoming visit. He'd decided on what he was going to say, at least to start, but figured that what happened after that would depend on Peter. He also had a dinner contingency ready in case things went late, and he had a car and driver ready to go on a moment's notice in case Peter decided he'd had enough and wanted to leave immediately. Ideally, he was hoping it'd go well enough that he and Peter could ride back together and talk a little more, but Tony would also be ready in case he just walked out and didn't want Tony around.

By the time Friday morning rolled around, Tony figured he was ready for just about anything.

Except being awoken at the crack of dawn by an emergency alert.

"Boss, Phineas Mason has escaped custody and is currently at large in the Pittsburgh area."

And since nearly nothing about that sentence made any sense to Tony's sleep-addled brain, he found himself seeking clarification.

"Mason? As in the Vulture's tech guy?"

"Yes."

"The guy I caught and handed over to Damage Control?"

"The same."

"He somehow escaped and he's… in Pittsburgh?"

"Yes, Boss."

Tony groaned and rolled out of bed. "Let's get to the bottom of this."

Several calls, and some of his own investigating later, Tony was not happy with what he'd found out. Apparently Secretary Ross had decided that Mason's gift of assembling Chitauri technology had been too good to ignore, and he'd had the man transferred to a 'secure' location somewhere just outside of Pittsburgh where he'd had him working with some of the alien tech that the government had confiscated.

Mason had escaped, using tech he'd made there that to date, none of them could accurately describe, much less understand. And as far as anyone could tell, he'd made his way into the city, likely to try to lose them.

"Incoming call from Secretary Ross."

"Put it through."

"Stark. We have a situation that requires your expertise."

"Oh really? Let me guess… you sprung a dangerous criminal out of prison to have him work for you, and he's escaped into a large metropolitan area? Am I close?"

"Just get to Pittsburgh. Colonel Rhodes will brief you enroute."

The line went dead, and Tony, because it was still early in the morning and he hadn't had any coffee yet…

...and because he was tired of Ross' bullshit and more than ready to be done with him…

...and because he didn't have time for this with Peter coming today…

...picked up the nearest object - a paper cup - and threw it across the room.

Which was deeply unsatisfying.

The bastard that had created the tech that the Vulture had used to hurt Peter was out in the wild again. Set loose by none other than his least favorite Secretary.

And apparently Damage Control had either slyly slipped into the business of messing with alien tech they didn't understand - which was exactly what he'd wanted to prevent by helping create Damage Control in the first place - or they'd simply allowed themselves to become a pawn in Ross' game.

Either one was completely unacceptable.

He was halfway to his workshop and his suit, when a call from Rhodey came through. As of yet, the general public was not aware that a dangerous tech genius was loose among them, but Rhodes had advised the local law enforcement of Mason's escape, and had warned them to report sightings only. Any attempt to engage the man could potentially leave them severely out-gunned.

"Are you at least coming this time? Or am I still doing the 'covert' solo thing?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm already enroute. I'll probably beat you there."

"Oh that sounds like a challenge."

On the way, Tony had Friday running facial recognition on every image they could pull from Pittsburgh, starting closest to where he'd escaped, and fanning out through the city. If his beady little eyes appeared anywhere, Friday would know it.

-0-0-0-0-0-

By mid-morning, Tony and Rhodey were at a small incident center that had been set up in a local FBI office, and were beginning to get the feeling that finding this guy via facial recognition would likely be impossible. Clearly, Mason was being cautious and staying away from anything that might catch him on camera.

Tony was feeling antsy, and just wanted to find this guy and get home. "Friday, put a list together of all the abandoned structures in the area, anything that would make finding this guy difficult, and prioritize it according to places Mason would be most likely to use." He figured the FBI could manage the surveillance side of the hunt while he and Rhodey turned over a few rocks to see what crawled out.

"Got it, Boss."

"We could start with something nearby. I think there's an abandoned iron factory not far from here." Rhodey offered.

An FBI agent answered before Tony could. "It's a tourist spot now. It's off-season, but there are still enough people visiting daily that it'd be hard for him to take it without it being seen."

Tony nodded. "Friday, remove any abandoned structures that have been repurposed from the list unless they're closed today, or have a very small staff and few visitors." There was always the possibility that Mason would decide he could take out a few civilians if it meant having a place to hide.

-0-0-0-0-0-

With Friday's guidance, Rhodey and Tony started searching places themselves, starting with the most likely places Mason would choose, and working their way down the list. Determining Mason wasn't at a site didn't take too long, but traveling between sites, especially while doing their best to stay off the media's radar, was proving to be time consuming.

They'd checked the most likely places in the city, when Tony had an idea. "Friday, let's expand our search a bit. Instead of assuming Mason went straight for a populated area, let's pretend he did the opposite and went somewhere more remote."

That search brought up some interesting results. There were several tunnels around the outskirts of the city that had been abandoned decades earlier when the railways and roads had been diverted to other paths.

"Might as well…" Rhodey sighed.

It was officially "after school time" in New York, by the time they'd finished checking the second tunnel.

"Friday, when Peter gets to the compound, tell him I'll be there shortly. Ask him to wait… wherever he wants. Just ask him to wait."

Tony didn't necessarily want to explain to Peter that he was on a mission to take out Mason. (For a second time, damn Ross and his idiocy.) The last thing he wanted was for Peter to worry about what might be going on over here. Or even worse, to decide to show up himself to help. Mason was too dangerous; Tony didn't want Peter anywhere near him.

The third tunnel was actually the closest to the city, but it hadn't been top of the list because it was currently being used by a racing company as a closed test track for their cars. As he and Rhodey drew closer, however, it appeared that something wasn't quite right.

"Hey Rhodey. If you had fancy racing cars you wanted to test on a closed track, would you leave the back door open?"

"Definitely not."

Scanning with infrared was a no-go because the tunnel was too long, and went straight through a hillside. The small structure just outside the tunnel appeared to be empty, though.

"Friday, are the racing people scheduled to use this tunnel today?"

"Sorry, Boss, they don't have their schedule listed anywhere."

"No cars parked on this side… hey Rhodey-"

"Yep. I'll go see what's down on the other end."

The unspoken agreement was that they'd each take a side - that way if anyone decided to suddenly evacuate, they'd know it.

"Friday, pull up the schematics for the tunnel. Is there any other way out?"

"Only the two ends, Boss. The rest is completely enclosed."

The tunnel was just under a mile long, but it didn't take Rhodey long to fly down and verify that there was no sign of the racing staff at the other end.

"Meet you in the middle," came Rhodey's voice over the comm.

"You got it, buddy."

Almost immediately, Rhodey confirmed that he'd had contact with Mason on his end of the tunnel. Tony opted to come straight down the tunnel towards them to cut off his escape, even though that meant going a little slower to make sure Mason hadn't left any surprises in the middle.

Within minutes, they had him trapped between them.

Mason seemed to be trying to conceal himself behind some equipment that was clustered to one side, but Tony had Friday running every scan possible. No one at Damage Control or the FBI had been able to tell them exactly what Mason might've created from the technology he'd been given access to, but Tony knew it wouldn't be anything gentle. This guy already had quite the track record for destruction.

"Watch out, Rhodes. Last time he had some kind of short-range teleportation tech, and a weapon that packed a real punch."

"Oh, you mean last time when you went after him alone? Without telling me?"

"I've always admired how forgiving you are. Don't know if I've ever told you that."

"Uh huh."

"Boss, he appears to have several devices, but I can't determine their functions. A least one appears to be an explosive."

"Alright, enough of this. Come on out, Mason. There's no way you're getting out of this."

The only reply was a bright energy blast that he only just managed to avoid. It struck the stone wall behind him and surprisingly, didn't appear to do any damage.

"That blast was some sort of focused electromagnetic pulse." Friday offered.

Rhodey didn't move, his repulsors facing towards Mason. "EMP's don't look like that. They shouldn't even be visible."

So either Mason was an idiot who'd managed to invent a way to make the least stealthy EMP ever, or there was more to that blast than what was immediately obvious. "The suits are shielded from normal EMP's, but try to avoid getting hit anyway. There's probably more here than meets the eye."

If Mason had managed to create an EMP that was able to get through his shielding, they were in trouble. Not only would it disable their suits, but it would also disable Rhodey's exoskeleton - he wouldn't be able to walk, much less fight.

Suddenly another blast came from where Mason was hiding. And then another, and another, and soon they were too busy dodging to worry about much else. Tony worked his way closer to where the blasts were coming from, only to discover that it wasn't Mason firing, but a device he'd set on auto-fire.

Tony shot the device, only to watch his repulsor blast be absorbed into some kind of field. "Damn it, it's coming from an auto-cannon that's shielded. Watch your back; Mason has moved."

Tony shot the ceiling just above the device, and the falling debris knocked it over, disabling it.

Seconds later, another barrage of blasts started, and Tony immediately sent some crates flying towards the source, hoping to disable it. It worked, but then another barrage started. Mason seemed to be using the same short-range teleportation tech he'd had before to set auto-cannons all over the place; it was only a matter of time before one of them was hit.

And unfortunately, with Mason appearing in random positions, it was hard to keep him between them. Soon Tony found himself backed up against the start of the deeper part of the tunnel, with Rhodey by his side. At least it seemed that Mason wasn't going to run until he'd disabled them. He probably realized he wouldn't get far as long as they could still come after him.

There were two auto-cannons firing on them now, making maneuvering increasingly difficult. Tony managed to disable one, and saw that Rhodey was disabling another, just as a third activated and sent a blast his friend's way.

Tony didn't think, he just reacted.

As soon as the blast hit him, Tony immediately knew that it wasn't an ordinary EMP. Mason had somehow calibrated the weapon to not only take out his electronics, but also do a hell of a lot of damage on contact with his suit. He took the blast to his midsection, and went flying deeper into the tunnel. His suit went completely dark, and before he could do more than register what had happened, there was a deep rumbling, and then nothing.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The next thing Tony knew, it was dark, silent, and he hurt all over. There was a sharp throbbing in his chest, but also in his head, leading him to believe that he probably had a concussion.

"Friday?" he croaked, unable to help himself. Of course the EMP had taken Friday and his whole suit offline.

Without power, he wouldn't get very far with his armor as a dead weight, so he reached one hand towards the release on his helmet.

Only to realize that his arms were pinned. As were his legs, and the rest of his body.

The queasiness that had previously been a background annoyance hit him full force as he realized that something must've fallen on top of him.

Most likely the hillside the tunnel ran under.

Trying not to panic, he started to push himself up, only to give up when the pain in his chest intensified, stealing is breath.

He hadn't even moved the armor an inch.

And to add insult to injury, he felt something hot rush up his throat. He was going to vomit in his suit. His last thought before passing out again was that it was a good thing that he was pinned face-down.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was still dark and quiet, but now it smelled like vomit. Tony tried to run a few scenarios in his head, but his thoughts weren't cooperating with him. All he knew for sure was that if Rhodey hadn't been caught in whatever had happened, he was somewhere right now working to get Tony out.

And if he was stuck here with him… the FBI had been following their progress as they checked the sites. They'd be able to find them. Eventually.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Tony fell asleep.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Then there were noises. Something like the rumbling of heavy equipment. Someone was digging him out. Either that, or Mason was out there trying to do something worse than drop a hillside on him.

But his eyelids were so heavy… he went back to sleep.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The next time he woke it was quiet again. He wasn't sure what had woken him up until he heard a muffled voice from outside the suit.

It was Rhodey, and he was cursing.

Finally, his helmet came off, and he squinted at the sudden brightness coming from flood lights that were set up nearby. "Steve'd be so disappointed in your language right now," he slurred.

Once they managed to get the suit off of him, Tony was able to move his limbs again and prove that he was just fine, thanks. Or at least fine enough not to need the stretcher they kept trying to get him on.

He stood, only partly supported by Rhodey, and surveyed the damage. Even though it'd felt like he'd been knocked back a long way, he'd really only been stuck just beyond the mouth of the tunnel, which was the only part that had collapsed.

Apparently, once Mason had managed to finally hit him, he'd followed up with another weapon - one that had been designed to take out large structures. His plan, if he'd had one at all, had apparently been to disable their suits with his modified EMP, and then bury them in the tunnel.

Of course, no one knew for sure what his plan had been because when Mason had triggered the tunnel collapse, he'd done so thinking that he'd managed to hit both of them. That mistake turned out to be fatal when Rhodey, having not been caught in the blast, had fired a killing shot at Mason while he was occupied.

Tony shivered, causing pain to cascade across his chest. It was already dark outside; he must've been trapped for hours. "Rhodes. What time's it?"

"Just after 7. Come on, let's get you to medical."

"Wait…what? No. Uh… wait." Tony attempted to tug his arm off Rhodey's shoulders as the other man all but dragged him towards a waiting vehicle.

"Come on, man. We're not doing this right now. You're getting checked out."

"No, but Peter. Rhodes, Peter was coming to the compound. He's gonna leave. Rhodes." The struggling he was doing, however minor, was making him dizzy and nauseated again.

Despite his protests, his friend put him into the back of an unmarked government van, and sat beside him.

"Tony, you refused the stretcher, you sent the medic away, but you're going to get checked out now. You have a head injury, man."

"Can I use your phone then? Can I call Peter?"

"No. You're concussed and upset, and this is not the time to call anyone. You're not going to reassure him like this, Tony. You're going to freak him out. Just wait, okay. This won't take long."

But Rhodey didn't get it. It'd already been too long, Tony was sure of it. He could imagine what had happened.

Peter would've arrived and asked for Tony. And then Friday would've let him know that he was on the way but running late. And Peter would've waited. But eventually he would've asked again, and Friday's only directive had been to ask Peter to wait, so she would've said it again. And maybe he would've waited a bit longer. But then he would've asked again and gotten the same answer and he would've figured that Tony had decided not to come.

And he would've left, thinking that it'd all been a lie: Tony wasn't coming. Tony wasn't interested in talking. Tony didn't want him after all.

"I think I'm gonna be sick again," he muttered, closing his eyes.

Tony wasn't aware of falling asleep again, but he supposed he had because the next thing he knew they were at a private medical facility, and Rhodey was waving off a wheelchair and helping Tony shuffle inside.

Rhodey had definitely lied about it not taking long. Even without other patients to worry about, it seemed to take forever. X-rays, an examination, and even a little blood work later, and the doctor told him exactly what he'd expected: cracked ribs and a concussion. He was instructed to go home and get some rest.

"Should someone be there to wake him up every couple hours?" Rhodey-the-liar wanted to know.

"No, that's an outdated practice, and not really medically necessary." The doctor then turned to Tony. "You may feel constantly tired, or even unable to sleep at all. Just get as much rest as you can. We'd only worry if your symptoms worsened from here on out. If you vomit any more, get increasingly dizzy, experience changes in vision, or your headache gets worse, then you need to get yourself to a hospital. Otherwise, just rest and stay away from anything that's mentally taxing until your head feels better."

"What about the ribs?" Rhodey, who now thought he was his mother, asked.

"Just rest and don't strain them. We don't usually wrap ribs because it restricts breathing and that can lead to pneumonia. So take pain relievers and make sure you keep taking deep breaths."

"Thanks, Doc." Tony offered, before his friend could ask any more questions or take any more time.

Despite the fact that Rhodey arranged for a private jet to get them back to New York, and they went straight from the airport to the compound, it was nearly dawn by the time they got back.

Shuffling slowly inside, Tony was at a loss. Peter was long-gone… he didn't know if he'd ever get the kid to agree to come out to the compound again. Or even to speak to him in Queens again.

"Tony, hey."

Tony realized he'd been staring at his closed bedroom door while he was lost in thought. He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"Want me to contact Peter a little later? While you rest?"

"Nah. Don't bother. I'll… I don't know. I'll figure it out later. Thanks, man."

"Anytime. I'm gonna go grab a couple of hours of sleep here, but then I've got to get back to Fort Bragg. Get some rest."

"Yeah," Tony answered again, and entered his room. Even though he'd been falling asleep every time he sat down all night, he was still completely exhausted. And his head was still throbbing, despite the medicine he'd taken.

He crawled into bed, careful of his sore ribs. "Friday?"

"What is it, Boss?"

"Did… Peter left, right?"

"Yes. He went home."

"I figured. Thanks, Friday."

He'd almost asked how long Peter had waited, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know. And he wasn't sure which would be worse - if he'd left right away, having not wanted to stick around when Tony wasn't immediately available, or if he'd waited and finally realized that Tony wasn't coming.

Either way, Whatever small amount of trust Peter might've had in him would be gone.


	17. Chapter 17

**Congratulations, it's a Boy**

 **Chapter 17**

Summary:

The morning after his disastrous mission is nothing like Tony expected.

* * *

Despite how bad he was feeling, Tony fell asleep again and wasn't aware of anything else until it was eleven in the morning. With the way his head and ribs were aching, he couldn't imagine eating, but as he wandered to his bathroom to take a pain pill, he figured he'd probably have to get something in his stomach anyway.

With that in mind, he set off towards the main kitchen, not even bothering to shower or change out of the faded FBI shirt they'd given him the night before when he'd had to ditch his armor and undersuit. By now Rhodey would be gone, and if anyone else happened to be around, Tony was more than ready to ignore them while he toasted a slice of bread and grabbed some coffee.

His main goal for today, really his only goal was to just have some toast and wallow a bit. After that he figured he could do something exciting like take a nap. If the pain meds kicked in well enough, he might even put on some mindless TV or something… but he wasn't going to do anything more taxing than that. And he definitely wasn't going to try to solve his Peter Problem today. As much as he hated to wait, he'd hate it even more if his lack of clarity caused him to mess things up even more than they already were. Maybe he'd be feeling well enough by the evening to at least send May an email and let her know everything was okay.

Or, maybe he'd walk into his kitchen and find Peter sitting at the center island, munching on an apple.

Wait, what?

"Peter?" Tony desperately tried to remember if the doctor from last night had said anything about possible hallucinations. Because Peter was sitting in his kitchen.

But Peter couldn't be sitting in his kitchen.

The hallucination in question started at the sound of his name, and looked up at Tony with wide eyes.

"Mr. Stark! Sorry, … Friday said I could have the apple. It was the last one… but she said she didn't think you'd mind."

Tony kind of wanted to pinch himself, as cliché as that was. "Friday, is Peter Parker currently in my kitchen, or am I hallucinating?"

"He's here, Boss. He arrived this morning."

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"We didn't want to disturb your rest." And for an A.I., Friday sounded quite satisfied with herself.

"We?"

"Sorry, Mr. Stark. I asked her not to bother you. I… I figured since you got in so late…" Peter trailed off.

Tony sat down next to Peter because he hadn't expected any of this, and he was struggling to process it.

"I can go? If this isn't a good time…"

"No. No, don't. Just give me a second, here." And wow, did the thought of Peter leaving send his stomach into a nosedive. He hadn't even expected the kid to be here - hadn't even imagined the possibility. But he couldn't send him away now.

"I wanted to talk to you last night. I meant to be home but-"

"You got called away on a mission; I know, I get it," Peter interrupted, sounding like he really did get it.

"How'd you know?"

"Uh… I asked Friday. She said you were running late, so I asked where you were. Not trying to be nosey, or anything… I just figured if you were somewhere in the compound or nearby… " Peter left the statement hanging, sounding almost apologetic.

"But then she said you were in Pittsburgh. I asked if it was a mission, and she told me it was. So yeah. That's pretty far away. I mean… even flying in the suit it's got to be what? Just over an hour away?"

"A little less in the suit, but yeah."

"So I waited a bit, but when it got late, I asked Friday if she could just send me an alert when you were done. I had to leave or May would worry. So she sent me a text this morning, but she said you'd probably sleep late, so…" Peter shrugged as if to say, 'here I am'.

As much as he didn't want Peter to leave, and was amazed to find him in his kitchen in the first place, he wasn't sure what to say. He didn't even know where to start.

He swallowed. "I'm sorry I wasn't here last night. It wasn't a mission I chose myself," he said carefully. He didn't want to worry Peter or have the conversation devolve into a discussion of the Accords and Tony's obligations, but he really needed Peter to know that he hadn't just made an appointment with him and then decided go to do something else.

Peter nodded, seeming to have already come to that conclusion himself.

"I need toast. Can I just?" Tony gestured helplessly to the kitchen at large.

"Yeah, definitely."

"Want any?"

"No, I'm good, thanks."

Tony got up and shuffled over to the coffee maker to get his coffee going while he grabbed some toast. His mind was spinning. This wasn't the last thing he'd expected to happen only because it hadn't been on the list at all.

Peter cleared his throat and turned the apple in his hands, examining it. "So uh… are you okay? Friday said you were hurt…"

Tony grabbed his toast and turned around carefully, because the last thing he needed was to whip around and wince at his ribs in front of Peter.

"I'm fine. And _Friday_ ," Tony raised his voice, glancing towards the wall behind Peter, "wasn't supposed to say anything about that."

Peter looked like he was about to protest so Tony figured he'd try to explain. "Look, I'm really okay. I'm sore, but I'll live. I didn't want this to be a thing. I didn't want you worried and only hearing me out because you think I'm…" He paused to collect his thoughts.

"It'd be emotional blackmail, plain and simple. And I don't want that. You don't have to show up and listen to me just because Friday got you all worried. I can't- I can't stomach using something like that."

"I get it, but Mr. Stark, Friday only told me like an hour ago. I came to hear what you wanted to say, and to say something myself. Just so you know."

"Oh. Well then. Finish your apple, and we'll talk." Tony sat down again beside Peter, now with his coffee and toast. As much as he wanted to put everything else on pause and have a conversation with Peter, he really did need to get something in his stomach before the pain pill he'd already taken made him sick.

Tony downed his toast and coffee, and Peter finished his apple in what felt like an instant. Everything seemed to be moving at high speed. Tony didn't know if he was ready.

He certainly couldn't guarantee he wouldn't say something stupid.

"So. You wanted to say something too? Do you want to go first, or should I?"

"I think I need to go first."

Tony nodded, realizing that he probably shouldn't have given him the option. What if he just wanted to tell Tony off and leave? The kid didn't look like he was feeling that way currently, but then again, what did Tony know about teenagers? No matter what Peter said, Tony hoped he'd at least have the opportunity to say his piece.

Peter looked down at the hoodie he was wearing, fiddling with one of the strings. "I uh… I wanted to apologize for the way I acted last time I was here. I shouldn't have broken your computer. Or tossed the stuff at you like that. I was an asshole."

"What? Did- is this coming from your aunt? Because I don't need an apology from you, kid. It's fine."

"Well… I mean, I talked to her about it. And I told her what I did. And yeah, she agreed that I should apologize, but it was my idea. I just… I was so upset. I didn't know what to think, so I guess I just immediately assumed the worst. But I had no right to wreck your stuff. I swear, I've never done anything like that, and I never will again. And I'll pay for the computer. I mean, eventually. I'm gonna save up."

"Okay, wait. First of all, apology accepted. I appreciate it, but don't worry about it, okay? I gave you plenty reason to be upset and no reason to give me the benefit of the doubt. This was all my mistake, not yours. You were just reacting the way any normal person would."

Tony waited until Peter was looking at him. "And second, you're not paying me back for the computer. No way. I wreck those things all the time. They're practically disposable. Steve sat on one once, and didn't pay for it, so believe me, if Captain America isn't worried about it, you shouldn't be either."

Of course, Steve actually _had_ freaked out a little, and tried to insist on paying for it, but Tony had eventually won that argument. What part of 'billionaire' did people not understand?

Peter gave a reluctant nod, and then it was Tony's turn. He kind of wanted to move the discussion over the living room where it was more comfortable, but he didn't want to risk breaking the spell. Somehow, it felt as if they'd reached a tentative understanding in the middle of the kitchen.

"I was going to tell you how I figured out you were Spider-Man. Friday told me that you'd asked a while back." Privately, he really hoped the story would drive home the point that he'd been interested in Peter long before Spider-Man came on the scene.

"Oh. Yeah, I wondered about that. I was afraid someone else might be able to figure it out like you did."

"Well there were a lot of algorithms involved, but the short answer is that I figured it out because I was already watching you." Tony cringed a bit at his own choice of words.

"That sounded creepier than I meant it to. Ever since I found out about you, I had alerts attached to your name, your aunt and uncle, Queens… I just wanted to be aware of anything that came up. So when Spider-Man suddenly appeared, I knew about it right away and I started gathering all the intel I could so I could figure out who he was and get him out of Queens."

"Get him out of Queens? Why?"

"Because Spider-Man was a super-powered vigilante running around Queens attracting attention. I just… I didn't think it was safe for that kind of activity to be that close to you. My goal was to get Spider-Man the hell out of Queens and away from you."

Peter was looking at him with half a smile on his face. "You were trying to protect me from _Spider-Man_?"

Tony let a bit of his exasperation color his voice. " _Yes._ Activity like that gets noticed. Bad guys start coming out of the woodwork to try to take a crack at the newest local hero. I didn't want you riding the bus to school one day and getting caught in the crossfire between that Spider-guy and whoever his enemy of the week was."

"Oh my god, Mr. Stark." Peter looked down at his lap, clearly smiling now.

"Hey, stop thinking this is funny. I was freaking out over this for months."

Peter shook his head, looking like he was attempting to suppress a smile, but failing. "But then you found out it was me, so no more need to freak out."

"Uh, _no._ What are you talking about? I found out it was you and I freaked out more than ever. How was I supposed to protect you from yourself? I think I spent the entire weekend after I found out yelling at Friday and eating ice cream." Which wasn't exactly what had happened, but if Peter was enjoying himself, he was willing to keep it light-hearted.

"And so you decided to make me a suit?"

"Immediately."

"And you gave it 576 web-shooter combinations." Peter was definitely smirking now.

Tony shrugged. "I like to be thorough."

Peter snorted and then fell silent. It was a comfortable quiet, but he still seemed to have something on his mind, so Tony waited.

He was lost in his own thoughts by the time Peter spoke again.

"Would you-" Peter stopped, and started again. "Do you think- I mean…"

Tony waited as patiently as he could, though it was clear that whatever Peter wanted to know wasn't easy for him to ask.

"Did you ever _want_ to claim me? I mean, I know you said you couldn't because it was too dangerous. But like… did you ever _want_ to have me around? At all?"

Tony's first instinct was to immediately reassure Peter that he'd always been wanted and that if there'd been any way to be a part of his life, Tony would've done it. But as much as it hurt to think about, that wasn't completely true, and Peter was smart enough figure that out on his own. If he wasn't completely honest with him right now while he had the chance, something told him that he wouldn't get another shot.

Still, how could he explain to an insecure teenager how much of a dumbass he'd been all these years?

Tony rubbed his aching head with one hand and sighed. "Believe it or not, kid, I got used to not getting the things I wanted a long, long, time ago. I know it sounds stupid coming from a genius billionaire, but I… I've never had the things that really mattered. Growing up all I wanted was someone to talk to. Hell, I _invented an A.I._ just so I could have a friend.

I was always an outsider, always the one that didn't fit in, always the one nobody understood. After a while I just stopped wanting the things that I obviously couldn't have.

And after I found out about you, and wasn't dying anymore and was finally starting to get my life together… you had a family who loved you."

Tony was staring into space now, caught in the memory. "You were in fourth grade at Highland, and your teacher had noted in your school record that you were 'exceptionally bright' and that your parents had been encouraging your interest in science at home. Your hair was curly like mine was at that age, but yours was a little lighter… and you were doing that thing in your picture where you smiled and one eye got a little more crinkled than the other. It was just a school picture… but you looked so happy."

He shrugged. "I didn't deserve you." Tony held up a hand before Peter could even try to interrupt.

"Look, I know that sounds stupid, and I don't expect you to get it, I really don't. But it's the truth. You were this bright, happy kid, and I was this jackass who didn't have the first clue about anything. I didn't claim you because I didn't want to mess things up for you. And before you even try to argue with me here, let's be honest - I'm sure you've seen the videos of me all over the internet - the one thing I've always been really good at is messing things up for people. I'm not proud of it… but there it is."

Tony cleared his throat, "So uh… I guess you could say that I never _let_ myself want you. I just… I couldn't do that to myself. Or to you."

Peter was looking intently down at the countertop as if it held all the answers he was looking for. "So when you invited me to join the team, to live here… was that really just a test?"

Tony couldn't help but wince. "You joining the team was legitimate Avengers' business - you earned that. You living here… that was one of the rare times I wasn't able to stop myself from wanting more than I deserved. I told you it was a test because that's what you needed to hear but… I mean… I had your room ready." He shrugged sadly. "It's stupid, I know."

He heard Peter take a deep breath and release it slowly, but Tony didn't look up from his own examination of the countertop.

"Are you-… do you still feel that way now? That you can't want me?"

A watery laugh escaped Tony at ridiculousness of the heartbreaking question. "Kid, that ship sailed a long time ago. Once I started getting to know you… I couldn't do anything _but_ try to figure out how to be a bigger part of your life. The internship, some of the changes I've made around the compound… all if it has been about wanting you around."

"As your son…" And the way Peter said it, quietly, tentatively, it was obvious that Peter needed it spelled out, even though he seemed almost afraid to ask for more reassurance.

Tony stared over at Peter until the kid finally looked up. "Yeah, as my son. And if you're not ready for that, then as whatever else… as long as I get to be part of your life. Kid… despite the rough start… I'm in this forever. There's literally no getting rid of me now."

Peter blinked, forcing the tears that had been building up in his eyes to trickle down his face. He quickly wiped them off with the back of his hand and stood, prompting Tony to stand as well.

"Can I hug you now? Are we there yet?"

Tony snorted, recalling his hasty words to Peter in the back of a car when he'd been too afraid to reciprocate the kid's hug. "Yeah, we're definitely there."

He opened his arms and made "come here" gestures with his hands. "Come on. Bring it in, kid."

 **END**

* * *

Notes:

That's it, folks! Peter's a good kid, and way more forgiving than Tony imagined.

Even though there's more to tell, I really felt like this story had to end here because it completes the intended arc for Tony and Peter. This story was about Tony finding out he had a son, being too scared to be a part of his life (even though he was drawn to the kid despite his best intentions), and finally figuring out - in his own messed up way - how to take that first step towards real fatherhood.

I have another story I'm currently outling and if I write it, it'll go something like this:

Tony and Peter are learning to be father and son, and figuring out together (with May's help) what that looks like for them. Peter doesn't see a problem with keeping who his father is a secret - it's just become another secret identity for him. But when that secret is discovered, Peter has to quickly decide if he's ready for the world to know he's Tony's son, or if he wants to let Tony erase the digital evidence and discredit his nemesis. Either choice has consequences... but is he really ready to live with them?

Honestly, I'm not 100% sure at this point that I'll write the next story, but if I do, that's what I'm thinking. So we'll see! :)

Thanks for sticking with me through this story! It's been a fun ride!


End file.
